I'm Always In Love
by LisaLovesCurry
Summary: Here's a story about how Carlisle and Esme met and fell in love-summer's the perfect time for fluff...
1. How To Fight Loneliness

Hi there! I'm Lisa, and here's the beginning of a Carlisle/Esme story—I know it's been done, but I love to think about how they met, fell in love, and so forth, so that's why I wrote this. This story's actually almost done—that is, I only have a couple chapters left to write—so I'm posting the first two chapters today to see what people think. Reviews are just…lovely, so please do that, if you'd like. (I only recently got a username here, which is really bad because I've been visiting and reviewing under random names for years, so here's a brief thanks to other Carlisle/Esme writers and fans—there are some really great stories out there ).

One other random thing: the title of this fic and all the chapter titles are titles of Wilco songs, because…I like Wilco. (They are on all my "Twilight Saga" mix CDs ). Disclaimer #1: I do not own anything written by Wilco.

Disclaimer #2: I do not own "Twilight"—Stephenie Meyer does. (I _do_ have Carlisle and Esme dolls though. Yes. They exist because I made them—that is the extent of my obsessive fandom).

One: How To Fight Loneliness

_"How to fight loneliness: smile all the time…"_

Carlisle's POV

It was the beginning of the nightshift, and Carlisle had just begun his rounds when a nurse approached him hesitantly.

"Er, Dr. Cullen? Dr. Brooks asked me to find you. There's a woman in the morgue who came in just as his shift was ending, and he was wondering if you could declare the body. They found her at the bottom of a cliff—it looked like a suicide."

Carlisle frowned at the information, then smiled reassuringly at the woman in front of him. He was careful to keep his face immobile, struggling not to laugh as the nurse blushed scarlet. "Of course, Julie. It's no trouble."

Carlisle knew that the other nightshift doctor, Dr. Kline, always hated starting his shifts with a trip to the morgue; he was an older man, eager to retire, and more than being a bit moody, the man struck Carlisle as being rather superstitious. Then again, Dr. Kline _did_ happen to have a vampire for a co-worker. _If he knew it,_ Carlisle thought, suppressing another chuckle, _his antipathy toward the morgue would be the least of his concerns._

Julie was staring at him blankly, and he wondered wearily if he should repeat himself. Julie was new, but Carlisle guessed that she'd already met with Dr. Kline's bad temper, thus her hesitation in coming to ask him to declare the body. None of the nurses wanted to make handsome Dr. Cullen unhappily. 'Lonely, single Dr. Cullen' was how Edward said they thought of him...

Finally realizing that she was staring, Julie smiled faintly. "Thank you…" she murmured before tottering off toward the Nurses' Station. Carlisle sighed, relieved that Edward wasn't there. The last time they'd gone into town together, they'd encountered another nurse, Ann, and her reaction had been similar to Julie's. Carlisle was used to it by now—humans reacted to their kind this way almost inevitably—but Edward's amused description of the woman's thoughts had given him pause.

Before he'd known Edward, Carlisle had had to rely on his own judgment when it came to deciphering the thoughts of those around him; having a mind reader for a son meant that there was no longer any uncertainty on this score. It was clear, after Edward's brief encounter with Nurse Ann's thoughts, that it was going to be time to move on again soon. Little over a year had passed since they'd come to Ashland, but already, the humans around him were becoming too attached. It wasn't just that most of the nursing staff seemed to see Carlisle as husband material. No, Ashland was simply too small a community for he and Edward to blend in as they had in Chicago. The smaller concentration of humans had made Ashland a welcome respite during Edward's final difficult newborn months, but it wasn't safe for so many people to know who they were.

Edward's steady progress and remarkable self-control aside, Carlisle knew that if Edward made a mistake, then it couldn't happen in Ashland. Too many people knew Dr. Cullen and his 'nephew,' and if they disappeared suddenly, it was certain to cause a stir. But if they moved on too quickly after someone else in Ashland vanished under mysterious circumstances, then they risked…everything. Exposure in human society would be bad enough, but attracting non-human attention…Carlisle frowned. He didn't like to contemplate how attractive Edward's gift made him to the Volturri. It had been decades since he'd last spoken to Aro, and since changing Edward, he'd begun to hope that their long estrangement would prove to be permanent.

As he moved quietly down the hallway toward the morgue, Carlisle turned over probable locations in his mind: a larger town would be ideal, and up north, where Edward wouldn't have to miss so much school on account of the sun. Edward was just a few weeks away from finishing his senior year of high school, and they'd agreed that as soon as he'd graduated, they'd move on. Carlisle smiled at the thought of attending the ceremony, seeing his son finish a rite of passage that Edward had missed when he'd been human, but then his thoughts returned to where they would be moving on to. The farther north one travelled, the fewer large urban areas there were, and it was too soon to return to Alaska, he'd spent a few years in Juneau less than a decade ago...

At the door to the morgue, Carlisle stopped, unnerved by the sound he heard from within. It was very faint, but unmistakable, and as he pushed open the door, he heard it again. Just inside the room, under a bloodstained sheet, he could hear a heartbeat. The quantity of blood alone made it clear to Carlisle why the woman who'd been covered up had been mistaken for a corpse. She was very nearly dead, her breathing too shallow to be audible to human ears, and her pulse was very faint. Carlisle touched her wrist to check what his ears had already confirmed, and then he pulled back the sheet. Something about this scent…

And then he saw her face. It was bloodied and bruised almost beyond recognition, but the scent proved there was no mistake. Her hair too was distinctive, thick and curled around her cheeks in tangled tendrils that were somehow just as lovely now as they'd been before. Without thinking, he brushed a blood-matted lock away from her eyes and stared down at her, mesmerized by the disparity between her appearance now and the way she'd looked ten years ago.

"Esme…" he breathed. To his amazement, her eyelids fluttered, and he could have sworn her heart sped up momentarily, but then it resumed its sluggish tempo, and Carlisle gripped the table she'd been laid upon until his fingers left dents. _She's lost too much blood_, he thought frantically. _And her bones…her spine..._

When he saw that her back was broken, Carlisle swallowed convulsively. There was nothing that could be done, absolutely nothing within the realm of medicine to fix someone so completely shattered. _A _human _couldn't do anything_…he thought grimly. Now that he'd admitted that it was the only way to save her, Carlisle tried to steel himself for what would come next. What would Edward's reaction be, never mind what Esme herself would say when the pain had passed? In Edward's case, Carlisle had had his mother's pleas to save her son as an excuse, not to mention his own desperation for a companion. To do this to Esme when he was no longer alone, when, given Julie's description, Esme had wanted to end her life, to do this to her without any kind of justification, save his own vivid memories of her, and the sudden desolation he felt at seeing her this way…could she ever forgive him for such a thing?

Her heartbeat had slowed even further in just the second or two he'd taken to deliberate the matter. Instinctively, he touched her hand, knowing that the chill of his fingers should illicit a response. Her hand twitched, and her eyelids moved again, more slightly this time than before. Already, he could hear the subtle changes beginning inside her as each biological process prepared to shut down.

"Esme," he whispered again, and there it was again, that sudden spike in her almost nonexistent heart rate. "Esme, I'm sorry, but I have to do this. I don't know why…" Slowly, he leaned over her and trailed his lips along her neck, stopping only when his mouth was just below her ear.

He meant to say, 'it'll be over soon,' but somehow he couldn't bring himself to lie, even when he knew how unlikely it was that she could even hear him. Instead, he whispered, "I'm sorry," one more time. Then he bit down, and as the skin of her neck gave way, his mouth filled with blood that was so much richer, so much more tantalizing than Edward's had been. As soon as he smelled a faint trace of venom issue from her still-bleeding wounds, he jerked his head away. It would have been so easy to keep going, to take just a few more mouthfuls, but she had so little blood left already that he was afraid of killing her before the venom had a chance to reach her injuries.

For a few seconds, nothing happened. Esme was so still that for an agonized moment, he thought he'd been too late. And then her heart beat again, stronger than before, and as he watched, she shuddered slightly. Her pulse had begun to accelerate, and Carlisle sighed, relieved but promptly anguished again when he thought of what the next three days had in store for her. Swiftly, he opened the door and glanced out into the empty corridor—he needed to get her away before she was able to scream—then he turned back into the morgue and scooped her up in his arms.

"I'm going to take you home now, Esme," he whispered. As he watched her, Esme's eyes rolled beneath their lids, and he could see the bruises on her face change color as the venom moved throughout her body, changing her as it healed. As he ran down the long, dark hall, then out into the night, he barely looked where he was going. Carlisle was memorizing her human face, wondering how it would be altered three days from now. When she awoke, newly immortal, what would he see in her crimson eyes? Could he really hope for anything other than resentment? It was puzzling, and more than a little disconcerting to realize that in over two and half centuries, the answer to a question had never been so important.


	2. Can't Stand It

Two: Can't Stand It

_"Hey ho, look out below—your prayers will never be answered again…"_

Esme's POV

When she first became aware again, the smell was what Esme noticed first. It was familiar, and though she could feel her senses weakening as she sank back toward unconsciousness, she could have smiled when she noticed the smell. Her face hurt, everything hurt, but she wanted so much to open her eyes, to see if he was really there—her angel, come to take her away at last.

She thought she heard him speak—she couldn't make out the words, but just the sound of his voice pulled her briefly back toward consciousness. The part of her mind that wasn't a haze of pain was eager, happy he'd come—it meant that the pain would be over soon, that she could finally be with him now. Soon, she'd be able to open her eyes and see his face…her son's face too…

She felt something brush against her neck, and then there was sound, but blood loss seemed to muddle things now; it was as if he were simultaneously close enough to touch and yet too far away for her to hear his voice. But she could feel herself slipping even further away, her heartbeat slowing down, and Esme sighed involuntarily. She was barely aware of the pain at all anymore…and then something pierced her neck.

Suddenly, the pain she'd felt before seemed to double, triple, crescendo until she forgot her injuries, forgot that she was dying, that she was going to heaven to see her son, and Esme's lips parted in a desperate attempt to scream. A strangled sort of gasp escaped, but her lungs seemed to lack the air for an audible cry. Through her agony, Esme felt herself moving, and then she remembered her angel. She tried to speak to him, beg him to make it stop…and then she realized what this pain must mean.

It seemed to come in waves; it was always terrible, fire licking every inch of her body, inside and out, but there were also moments when, though the pain was still unbearable, she was able to form a coherent thought beyond the words, _Make it stop, it hurts, make it stop,_ please _make it stop_…It was in these moments that she could contemplate this as her eternity. She had never been religious in the way her parents seemed to be; that is, she preferred the merciful God of the New Testament to the vengeful God of the Old. Hell had always struck her as an idea that had been dreamed up as a means of frightening children or non-Christians into believing, but really, if the mercy of God was infinite, how could she have put herself so completely beyond the reach of His forgiveness?

_You committed suicide_, the coherent part of her mind would sometimes remind her, and then the pain would resume, often seeming stronger than before, and then Esme had no time for contrition. In those gaps between the hideous waves of pain, she felt nothing but loss and confusion._ What else could I have done?_ she wondered frantically.

The first time she found herself able to scream, she did, but the pain was incidental; her cry was for her son more than for herself. When physical agony had wrenched her from unconsciousness, emotional agony had returned as well, and many of her lucid moments were devoted to anguished questions: _What could I have done differently? Even if I can't be saved now, could _anything_ have saved him?_ The pain she felt when she remembered the tiny child who had died in her arms was the reason she had jumped, and now, it seemed, that in attempting to escape it, she'd doomed herself to relive that pain forever.

But when she'd screamed, Esme thought she'd heard the angel's voice again. From then on, a low, comforting murmur kept her company, and though Esme kept her eyes shut, afraid of what she might see if she opened them, she thought she could feel someone beside her. _It's a trick_, was the thought that one coherent moment produced. But then something touched her hand, and for a moment, the pain seemed bearable, and Esme could imagine that it might end, that eternal punishment was unrealistic after all. Then it returned, once again stronger than before, and Esme gave up. Eternity seemed to promise nothing but agony and false hope for respite, which in a way was even worse than endless agony. So she waited, stifling most of her screams, and tried to focus on the voice of the angel. which was no less beautiful for being a lie.

For awhile, she thought of nothing but the pain, which was getting more and more unwieldy every moment. She screamed and thrashed, and in the distance she thought she heard the angel's voice, thought that something was trying to hold her down, but the agony seemed to double every second, until just as quickly, it began to fade.

Esme gasped when she first noticed the pain leaving her fingers and toes; the pain seemed to be gathering in her chest, and though it was stronger there than it had ever been before, she was amazed to find that the fire was no longer twisting her face. It left her hands and flowed up her arms toward her chest, and though Esme still felt herself thrashing, heard her own screams echoing off the walls around her, suddenly she stopped kicking, because the pain had left her legs. Then she stopped screaming, because now there were other sounds that were claiming her attention.

The pain in her chest, unbearable as it was, had taken on a fascinating new dimension, because through the pain, Esme was suddenly aware of the sound of her heart beating. It seemed louder than it should, and the sound of pumping blood was thick, as though it moved with difficulty. The pain had gathered near her heart, and now the muscles seemed to stutter as the blood she could hear moving inside her stirred only reluctantly. Now her heart, which had been frantically struggling to keep itself moving a moment ago, seemed reluctant to go on; it slowed, and Esme listened as it beat once…then again…and then there was nothing.

Esme sighed, and her eyes snapped open. Scent had flowed into her lungs when she'd taken a breath, his scent, so much stronger and more fragrant than she remembered, and now her eyes widened as they took in the chipped paint on the ceiling above her. Something, she reasoned, must be wrong with her vision—every color was too bright, the air around her laden with too much information—the smell of wood, of linen, of blood—

"Esme?" a quiet voice beside her murmured. Esme turned and then sat up when she saw who was sitting in the chair beside her bed. She took a breath to try and steady herself, but his scent seemed to only confuse things more. All at once, she was in heaven, and her angel was beside her.


	3. Either Way

Oh my gosh!!! Thank you so much for all the glowing reviews, everybody! A special shout-out to Elise—I LOVE all of your Carlisle/Esme stories, so I was really excited when I saw your reviews!!! Anyway, thanks! This chapter is…really long. So is the next one, which I'm also posting right now—sorry for the wait, but my Internet was acting up this past weekend. Chapter five is almost done, so I'll probably put that up on Sunday.

Some of the stuff I describe in this chapter isn't mentioned in the books—I just thought it made for an interesting concept, so please let me know what you think. Thanks for reading! 

Disclaimer: I don't own "Twilight." Stephenie Meyer does, and I think she is a lovely person, but I would appreciate it very much if she would start working on "Midnight Sun" again because it's hard to be patient!!! (Also, why isn't it November yet? I'm very excited for "New Moon,' and IS IT NOVEMBER YET?!).

Three: Either Way

_"Either you will or you won't…I will try to understand…everything has its plan…"_

Carlisle's POV

As soon as Carlisle entered the house, Edward was beside him. He didn't acknowledge the woman in his arms; Edward simply stepped around Carlisle and slipped out the front door. His face was twisted away from the bloody human body, but he looked composed, even sympathetic. Carlisle, who'd expected anger, paused to watch his son move swiftly out into the night.

"I saw," Edward said simply. "Good luck."

_Thank you, Edward,_ Carlisle thought, relieved at how easily Edward had accepted a new addition to their family. He was still having trouble taking his eyes off Esme's face, and as he compared it to that of the girl he'd met ten years before, Carlisle dashed up the stairs and laid her on one of the house's two unnecessary beds. Then he sat down to watch; he knew that her present subtle expressions of pain were nothing to what she'd exhibit once the venom really began to spread.

_I'm sorry_, Carlisle thought again, sighing as he watched her twitch, the agony just beginning. Then he closed his eyes for a moment. Three days would be a long time to watch this, and for now, Carlisle wanted to remember the Esme he'd first known, so different from the broken woman beside him now. He suspected that Edward had seen most, if not all of the scene that he was once again recalling:

_Columbus, 1911_

The day had started off sunny, but then a storm had blown in just before noon, so Carlisle came in after lunch. It was a busy day, and several people on the hospital's staff told him how glad they were that he'd only called in sick for the morning. Between his pallor and the dark circles under his eyes, no one ever questioned it when Dr. Cullen said he felt ill and left early on a sunny day, but it had been happening all too frequently lately, and Carlisle had been grateful when he saw the clouds that morning. Just like that, his secret would remain safe for another day.

His first few patients were nothing out of the ordinary: an elderly man had been admitted complaining of chest pains, and he worried that he was having a heart attack (it turned out to be gas); a young mother brought in her baby, who'd been crying most of the morning (an ear infection); then there was a man who'd cut himself while sharpening a fishing knife (quite a few stitches later, it looked as though he wouldn't lose any fingers).

"All right, what's next?" Carlisle said cheerfully. Flustered, the nurse on duty shuffled some papers, looking as though she was making an effort not to stare, and then she handed him his next patient's form. Carlisle thanked her and stepped away from the nurse's station before she had a chance to recover enough to speak; judging by the amount of attention he was attracting, Carlisle guessed that he only had a few months left in Columbus.

_Esme Anne Platt,_ he read, _age sixteen. Experiencing intense pain in her left leg just above the knee; fell from a tree earlier today. _Carlisle smiled at the description, but his eyes narrowed when he noticed the faint scent clinging to the paper in his hand. Strange; it was a very distinctive smell, not appetizing so much as…tantalizing. That was the only way to describe it. Suddenly, Carlisle quickened his pace. If this scent was hers, then he wanted to see her, curious to know what such a human would look like...what she would smell like up close…

Carlisle shook his head and slowed down. His blood lust had hardly bothered him for decades, and it wasn't thirst he was feeling now. It was simply the strangeness of even _noticing_ a human's scent that compelled him to hurry forward again. Humans all smelled basically the same, or at least they had for more than a century. What was different about this one?

After knocking politely (to which a quiet voice said "come in,"), Carlisle opened the door to Esme's room and stepped inside. His initial reaction was startled surprise; the smell was stronger now that he was in the same room with her, but more than that…the girl herself was strangely captivating. She was thin and awkward-looking, her skin was rather more tanned than polite society would consider fashionable, and her face and legs were smeared with dirt, but these details, all of which Carlisle's sharp eyes would have normally taken in without comment, were ignored. For a split second, Carlisle and the girl stared at one another, large green eyes locked with golden ones. Then he remembered that she was a young human girl, little more than a child, and he was a vampire, and he should not be staring at her.

"Ahem, hello Ms. Platt," Carlisle said, managing an easy smile. "I'm Dr. Cullen."

The girl, who obviously registered how intensely they'd been looking at one another a moment before, had flushed scarlet, and was staring down at her hands, which she'd folded in her lap. Carlisle watched her blush deepen as she met his eyes again, and what remained of the rational part of his brain told him furiously to _stop staring_.

"It says here you fell out of a tree," Carlisle said gently, moving cautiously to sit in the chair beside the bed where Esme was resting—being closer to her didn't make his goal of not staring any easier to accomplish. Unlike the nurse he'd encountered a few moments ago, he had no idea what Esme was going to say when she opened her mouth, and he was curious. Exceedingly curious.

Esme finally nodded and cleared her throat. She was still bright red, but she too seemed to be making an effort to pretend that nothing out of the ordinary was going on. "Yes, I…I was climbing…though I suppose that's obvious," she said, smiling awkwardly. _She has dimples_, the abruptly insane part of Carlisle's brain noted, while the remnants of his sanity ordered him to look down at the form he was still holding.

"It doesn't say that here, but I did wonder," Carlisle said, looking up and smiling. Esme looked, if possible, more embarrassed than before, but she smiled too before resuming her careful examination of her hands. Carlisle glanced at Esme's leg, momentarily returning to his clinical train of thought; there was already some bruising evident just above her right knee.

"Do you have any idea how far you fell?" he asked.

Esme frowned. "Um, more than ten feet, I think. I was…about halfway up the tree when I slipped, and I caught myself when I started to fall, but then the branch I grabbed broke, and…" Esme shrugged. "I don't really remember hitting the ground, I just remember waking up and noticing how badly my leg hurt."

It was Carlisle's turn to frown. "If you hit your head, you should probably stay here for the night, just in case."

Esme nodded. "The nurse who met my parents and I when we came in told them that. They're planning on picking me up tomorrow."

Carlisle stopped what he hoped was a convincing examination of the form he held, which he'd already memorized, and looked up. "Your parents left?"

Esme shrugged and smiled, her expression tolerant and unsurprised. "They have what my mother described as a 'very important' party this evening, so when we heard that I'd be staying the night, I told them to go and have a good time."

Carlisle caught himself staring again. "Are you all right?" he asked quietly, before he could stop himself.

Esme looked embarrassed, but also a bit defiant now. "I'm fine. It doesn't bother me that I have to stay alone—my mother would have just lectured me about tree-climbing if she'd stayed."

Carlisle hated the undercurrent of sadness that had entered her voice. "If you don't mind my asking, what does your father do for a living?"

"He's a bank manager," Esme said, her weary tone suggesting that she had been told many times what an important job this was. "The party they're going to tonight is for all the managers of the different branches of the bank, and I guess a lot of other people are going too." She sounded unimpressed.

Carlisle smiled. "Are you sorry that you'll be missing it?"

Esme looked at him, and the way she giggled further muddled his still stuttering brain. She could tell he was teasing her, and this somehow made him unreasonably happy. "Somehow I'll survive," she said, trying to look serious. "Of course, there's always another party. _Always_."

Carlisle chuckled. "You prefer tree-climbing to parties?"

"I prefer tree-climbing to my parents' parties," Esme said. Suddenly she looked irritated. "My mother and father see social events as an ideal location for me to find a husband."

_I should not need to stifle a growl upon hearing_ _that_, Carlisle thought frantically, trying to keep his own expression free of irritation. "I see," Carlisle said, forcing himself to smile. "Well, you seem rather young to be thinking about that just yet."

"Are you married?" Esme asked suddenly. The blush on her cheeks had deepened again.

"No," Carlisle said, like her, speaking too quickly. He forced another smile. "You're right, I suppose I shouldn't really presume to—"  
"No, that's—it's fine," Esme said, twisting her hands together and studying her fingers. "I—just wondered."

Carlisle nodded absently._ I need to get out of this room as soon as possible_, he told himself, and then he studied Esme's leg again, reminding himself frantically to be clinical, to maintain some semblance of sanity. "Do you mind if I examine your leg? I think I can see where it's broken."

Esme nodded, and he stifled a laugh when he heard her heart rate speed up. _At least I don't have a heartbeat she can hear_, he thought as he gently placed his hands just below her right knee. She flinched, and he wondered if it was only the chill of his fingers that she was reacting to.

"Sorry," he said, moving his hands up, probing quickly and gently as he moved toward the bruise.

"It's fine," Esme said, her voice sounding more breathless than the last time she'd said this. "Your hands are just a little—" Suddenly she winced sharply, sucking in her breath and holding it even after Carlisle dropped his hands.

"Sorry," he repeated as she slowly exhaled. "It feels like a clean break, but I'll give you something for the pain before I set it."

Esme nodded. "Thank you," she said quietly. Their eyes met again, and this time a full two seconds passed before Carlisle managed to look away. He shook his head and cleared his throat, and when he glanced at Esme, she was staring down at her hands again—she'd twisted up her fingers so tightly that it looked as though they were blushing too.  
"What's your first name?" she asked suddenly.

"Carlisle," he said without thinking; the question had forced him to stifle a grin—but why should he be so pleased that she'd asked? Suddenly, he was filled with a dull, hollow feeling. He needed to leave, now, because a few more minutes with this human could be fatal, for her at least. Carlisle was amazed; here he was, contemplating ending the life of a girl he'd known for all of five minutes, who he'd never even known existed before that time. Because…why? Because she made him feel so strange? Maybe it was simply her circumstances that drew him to her: she was beautiful, young and alive, her whole life ahead of her, a life that he hoped would be filled with a loving spouse—he stopped himself from grinding his teeth—and children, if she wanted that. A long life that would end, how many decades from now?  
"I'm curious," he said on impulse. "You don't relish the idea of marrying just yet—what would you like to do?"

"Go to college," Esme said immediately. Then she looked embarrassed again. "I—I like to read," she said simply. "And I know…well, I've read about women who've gone to college and I know what people say about them, but…I think it would be fun to try."

"You like school," Carlisle said kindly.

Esme nodded. "I'm _good_ at school—I'm not good at making junior bank managers fall in love with me."

Carlisle laughed—Esme looked less startled than he was by the sound. "Or I'd like to teach," she said quickly, before sighing. "But, that's something else that girls from good families don't do—don't _have_ to do, as my mother would say."

"She wouldn't like you to be a teacher?" he wondered.

"She'd let me join a convent first," Esme said, and he snickered again. She looked pleased with herself for a moment, but then her face fell abruptly. "

"I can't complain really," she said quietly. "They just want what they think is best for me. We just happen to have very different ideas of what the 'best' might be."

"Right now, the best thing for you is if I see to your injuries," Carlisle said, simultaneously relieved and disappointed that it was time to steer the conversation into safer, less personal territory. "Would you like something for the pain?"  
"No!" Esme said swiftly before flushing again, right on cue.

"Do you mind needles?" Carlisle asked kindly. "If so—"  
"No, it's—needles aren't…" Esme shook her head—it wasn't that. "It's—one of the nurses said she could put me to sleep, and I don't—I don't want to sleep right now," she finished in a rush.

Carlisle closed his eyes for a split second. _No_, he thought miserably, _don't do it_…_control yourself._

"I'll be right back," he said softly. He knew he should leave, should fetch another doctor to tend to Esme, go now and never come back, never see her again…But instead, he hurried out of the room to get the supplies he needed, moving too quickly, already anxious to get back to her.

A little more than an hour later, Carlisle had bandaged her head, set her broken leg, and encased it securely in a plaster cast. He'd moved more slowly than was strictly necessary, sometimes letting his fingers linger for a second too long against a lock of her hair, the bruise on her knee, which seemed soothed slightly by the chill of his skin. Still, he tried to keep his touch detached, carefully listening to her heart rate and trying to put some distance between them every time her pulse quickened too suddenly, which was often. Too often. In Carlisle's experience, it took the single women of his acquaintance at least a few days, or even weeks, to become dangerously infatuated with him, at which time he would have to very kindly discourage their attentions. Esme was something different entirely: what had always been a gradual process before seemed to have happened in minutes. Worse, Carlisle somehow couldn't bring himself to discourage her. On the contrary, he noted with increasing alarm that he seemed to be staring as much as she was.

At first, they'd talked: she'd told him about her school, about her friends, her home, and he in turn had told her about his parents, his time in medical school, and save a few details—dates, mainly—he was startled to hear himself telling her the truth. Carefully crafted lies and half-truths that he'd been telling for decades were forgotten as soon as she looked him the eye, and much as her smell had caught him off guard initially, as time went on, it seemed to only grow more potent.

It was very different, Carlisle realized, than the scent of a human who was merely appetizing: by some odd fluke of nature, this girl seemed to be having the same effect on him that immortals usually produced in her kind. Her scent, her eyes, the sound of her laughter, the hue of her skin, either pale or flushed…all of it attracted him, and it was obvious that his own attributes were having a similarly powerful effect on Esme. It was like a magnetic pull, drawing them closer to each other, and by the time he'd finished treating her, Carlisle was startled to find himself seated on her bed, no longer even attempting to maintain a safe distance while they spoke, and though the chill of his proximity had led her to wrap herself in a blanket, Esme seemed delighted. She was laughing at something he'd said—he could hardly remember what now, but her face was flushed with happiness, and in that moment, Carlisle remembered what he'd carefully been avoiding for the last hour: what he was, and what she was. His own smile fading, Carlisle stood up and prepared to leave.

"I'm sorry to go so suddenly, but it was very nice meeting you, Esme," he said sincerely.

Instantly, her face fell when she heard his abrupt goodbye. "Will you be back?" she wondered, her voice almost trembling. "I mean, before I leave?"  
"I'm not sure," Carlisle said uncomfortably—this was the first lie he'd told her, because of course he wasn't coming back. He couldn't, not unless he wanted to steal her, leave town that very night. Of course she would say yes if he asked her to come with him—and then what? He would change her, he knew that he would tell her everything, and she would want him to, she was brave, she'd endured the pain of a broken leg because she'd wanted to be with him, and she would think that the change was much the same, only magnified. But it would be worse, so much worse, and could he really do that to her?

_No_, Carlisle answered himself. _I couldn't stand watching her like that, knowing that she'd agreed to it because of me—that she was in agony because of me. Of course I couldn't take her whole life away._ The rational part of him was sure of this, but the suddenly selfish part thought that _maybe_ he could bear it if it meant an eternity with her. When the pain was over, she would be happy—yes, Esme wouldn't feel she was losing anything. Esme would almost certainly be happy…

Carlisle shook his head—'almost' wasn't good enough. _She's practically a child_, he told himself fiercely, _and if you don't leave this room right now, if you changed her in the selfish way you're contemplating, then you would never forgive yourself. Even worse, what if she didn't?_

Forcing himself to be quick, Carlisle took one of Esme's hands, allowing himself to ignore her racing heart this time—the last time he touched her. Very gently, he pressed his lips against the warm skin on the back of her hand.

"Carlisle…" she breathed, and when their eyes met, he was almost undone. It would have been so easy to pick her up, slip outside and hurry her away right then and there. But then he released her hand and forced himself to smile, to take a step toward the door.

"Goodbye, Esme" he whispered. "Take care."

Carlisle stepped out of the room and quietly closed the door. Then he took a deep breath and closed his eyes. _Memorize her scent, memorize her face_, he thought dully, and then he tore himself away from the door to Esme's room, forced himself to walk down the hall, to go to the nurse's station and take the rest of the day off. Another doctor would check on Esme in the morning, before her parents came. By morning, he would be far away, and she would be safe, she would be free to live a long and happy life, and he could begin to forget her.

_Ashland, 1921_

While she was burning, he told her about that day from his point of view, and how he'd thought of her every day until he'd changed Edward. After that, he said quietly, he'd had little leisure for fantasies, particularly those that he had no doubt would make his adopted son uncomfortable. Then he told her what he was, told her about Edward, about their life, about what she would be. In the moments when her sounds of pain weren't too unbearable, he could tell himself that he was rehearsing for when she woke up, preparing himself.

But after three days had passed, and he finally let go of her hand as her heart beat for the last time, he had no idea what to say when her eyes snapped open. He watched her examine the ceiling for a few moments, undone by her face as completely as a decade before, and then he said her name.

"Esme?"

She sat up, eyes blood red and almost incandescent with newborn strength and beauty, and Carlisle had no idea what to expect when her eyes met his this time. _Now she'll ask me what I've done to her_, he thought miserably. _She is going to curse me, hate me, beg me to undo it, just like Edward wanted me to—_

And then she spoke, her voice deeper, more melodic than that of the girl he'd known ten years before.

"Dr. Cullen?"

In that instant, everything Carlisle had spent a decade trying to forget about his afternoon with Esme, every feeling he'd tried to tell himself he'd just imagined, seemed to hit him all at once. Later, Carlisle would look back on this as the moment when he fell completely, hopelessly in love with her.


	4. When You Wake Up Feeling Old

Disclaimer: I don't own "Twilight," Stephenie Meyer does, but I _do_ own "Twilight" dolls of my own creation. (Tonight I'm going to finish Alice and Jasper! ).

Four: When You Wake Up Feeling Old

_"No, I can't sing…till she brings the song to life…"_

Esme's POV

It was the most welcome sight Esme could have imagined waiting for her on the other side of the fire, but it was also the most impossible. And he looked…the same, which certainly lent credence to her angel theory. In ten years, he hadn't aged a day, but more than that, he was practically…radiant. Her new eyes seemed identify every particle of light that touched his skin, and rather than the angel of a decade's worth of fantasies, he looked positively god-like, a statue come to life and rendered in perfect shades of alabaster and gold. His eyes were just as hypnotic as she remembered, but they were darker now, almost black instead of honey-colored. They were troubled too. _What's happened to me?_ she wondered.

He was looking at her hopefully, waiting for her to speak again, but somehow his expression also seemed wary, apologetic. Like her, he was wondering what would happen next. Clearing her throat to try and dispel the growing discomfort there, Esme decided to start simply.

"Where am I?" she asked. _Why does my voice sound so strange?_

"My home," he said. "You've been here for three days now."

"Three days?" Esme repeated. "That's all?" It had felt like the fire had lasted much longer than that, but suddenly Esme found herself shying away from thoughts of the fire. If she thought too much about it, she might start to recall whatever had preceded it. Though it seemed impossible, she sensed that whatever had come before the fire had been even worse.

"Is the pain going to come back?" she asked before she could stop herself.

"No," Carlisle said quickly, his expression pained. "Esme, I'm so sorry about that."  
Esme stared at him. "But…you helped me—I'm sorry, I should be thanking you. You…you saved me, didn't you? You did something to stop the pain."

Carlisle looked, if possible, even more unhappy than he had before. "I…Esme, I did save you, in a sense, but I'm the one who caused the pain. That's how I saved you—by…changing you."

Esme studied him for a moment. She certainly felt changed—her eyes, her ears, her nose—every sense she used to examine Carlisle was far more powerful than she remembered, and though she knew that she'd been sitting in one position for some time now, her muscles felt no fatigue, no urge to fidget. Now that the pain had ended, Esme was beginning to feel how different she was, how much stronger, and more at ease. Part of it was Carlisle: she was with him, and that made her feel safe, but there was a small part of her mind that whispered to her that even if he attacked, it wouldn't matter, because she was stronger than he was, faster. There was no danger here that she wasn't more than equal to.

Esme shook her head, startled by such an odd thought. Suddenly she realized that she could remember very little about what had come before the fire—she somehow knew that she was stronger, but she could remember few specific instances of weakness. There was the tree she fallen from, of course, because that was how she'd met Carlisle…but suddenly, Esme felt herself trying not to think of something again—a tall man, a dark room, pain, not like the fire, but terrible nonetheless…

"I'm like you now," Esme breathed. She'd said it out loud almost the same moment that the thought entered her head, and though she knew that it was true, it still thrilled her when he nodded, his dark eyes uneasy.

"Yes, you are," he said. "Esme, what do you think I am?"

His voice was very gentle, but something beneath his calm demeanor suggested that he was burning with curiosity. Esme's answer was on the tip of her tongue, but then suddenly, she didn't want to say. It was one thing to think the word 'angel,' but somehow the thought of saying it aloud seemed to render the very idea ridiculous. She certainly saw him that way, but what if she was wrong? What else could he be?

"I…have an idea," she said finally. "But maybe you could give me a hint so I'll know if I'm on the right track."

Carlisle smiled faintly. "A hint?" he repeated. "Hmm, well, let's see…I…have a reflection."

Esme couldn't quite stifle the snort of laughter she uttered when she heard this, and Carlisle grinned. "Sorry, bad hint, huh?"

"Terrible," a voice outside the room said, chuckling. Esme whipped her head around, looking at something other than Carlisle for the first time in several minutes, and saw a closed door a few feet from her bed. "Can I come in yet? At this rate, between your desire to tell her everything and your desire not to frighten her, it's going to take you hours to explain."

"Come in, Edward," Carlisle said. When she glanced at him, he was still smiling, and then she turned to watch as a young man entered the room, his odd, bronze-colored hair tousled and shining even in the faint light of the dark room. Like Carlisle, he was exceedingly handsome, but Esme could see the faintest traces of childish curves in his features, despite the angular lines of his face and the intensity of his deep-set eyes. He was, she guessed, about ten years younger than she was, but with such perfection, it was hard to tell. Now the boy was kneeling beside her bed and offering her his hand.

"Esme, this Edward, my…son," Carlisle said hesitantly. As Esme shook Edward's hand, it occurred to her that Carlisle had never introduced the boy to anyone this way before.

Edward smiled. "You're right—he's never introduced me as his son, anyway, and it's very nice to meet you, Esme."  
Esme stared at him. "Um…I didn't say that out loud, did I?"

Edward's smile widened. "No, sorry. I just…heard."

"One of Edward's many talents," Carlisle explained, his voice both amused and exasperated. When Esme continued staring at him, he elaborated. "He reads minds."

Esme looked at the boy beside her. "You…really?" _You've heard everything I've thought so far?_ she thought frantically.

"Yes," Edward said, his expression becoming more sympathetic. "…to both."

"Can you?" Esme asked, looking at Carlisle—her face didn't feel hot, but she knew that she must be blushing furiously—but then he shook his head, and she sighed, relieved, only to be bombarded with a fresh taste of his scent as soon as she took another breath.

"I can't," Carlisle said. "But some of our kind have gifts like Edward's—perhaps you do too."

"Our kind," Esme repeated, glancing at Edward. _Please just shake your head very slightly if I'm wrong_, she thought. A corner of Edward's mouth twisted up in a smile as he shook his head. Esme turned back to Carlisle. "So...what are we?"  
"You don't want to guess?" Carlisle asked. His tone was light, but Esme sensed that this was what he desperately wanted to delay telling her.

"I already know I'm wrong," she said, gesturing toward Edward, who'd sat down on the edge of her bed. "Maybe after you tell me what we really are, I'll tell you my guess."

"But you'll have to tell her first, Carlisle," Edward said quietly. Esme saw that he was looking at his father with a mixture of pity and impatience. "No use drawing it out."  
Carlisle sighed. "No, you're right. Esme, just a moment. I'm going to get you a mirror."

Esme watched as he crossed the room and opened up a chest of drawers. He pulled out a silver hand mirror, and then carried it back to her, his steps slow and hesitant.

"Do I look very different?" she asked quietly. This new voice, lower and more melodic than her old one, was really going to take some getting used to, but now Esme realized that maybe her voice and her senses were just the beginning of the changes. Without a word, Carlisle handed her the mirror and sat down beside her again, his expression solemn. Edward looked serious too; puzzled, Esme raised the mirror to look, and then she gasped.

As a child, Esme had been cheerful but a bit plain, and even as an adult, she'd never cared much for her appearance; she thought of herself as pretty, but hardly beautiful. How strange was it now, when she could remember very few specific details of whatever had been before the fire, that she should recall such trivial thoughts: her nose had been a bit too long, her eyes so large that she could remember complaining that her reflection always seemed surprised, and her skin, forever smudged with dust or dirt. Now, a bust of Aphrodite was staring out of the mirror at her: her features were perfectly proportioned, her skin was as pale and smooth as Carlisle's and Edward's, and her hair, before a flat, limp mess that lay atop her head, arranged in pins, whenever it wasn't braided, was wavy and thick. As with Edward and Carlisle, the color too was so vibrant that it seemed almost unnatural; such beauty belonged in paintings, not on her face of all places. And then she noticed her eyes: not the shape, but the color.

Esme took a deep breath. The color was disturbing, but it also gave her another idea.

When she spoke, somehow she couldn't manage to raise her voice above a whisper. "Would…would going outside during the daytime be a bad idea?"

Esme continued to stare into the mirror, but beside her, she felt Carlisle stiffen. Then Edward surprised her by chuckling grimly.

"It would be, but not for the reason you think. We don't sleep in coffins either, or turn into bats."

"You know, you could have given me a better hint," Esme said, trying to keep her voice light and even as she met Carlisle's eyes—he was looking sad and worried again. "I would have guessed it if you'd said anything about…blood, or…or Transylvania," she finished, smiling weakly.

Carlisle smiled for a moment, his own expression very strained, and then worry suffused his features again. "Esme, I'm so sorry for doing this without asking. When I found you, there was nothing I could have done to save you. So…I changed you."

"You…bit me?" Esme asked. She tried to stifle the thought, but she realized as soon as the words were out of her mouth that the thought of Carlisle's mouth on her neck was somehow the opposite of unpleasant.

Carlisle nodded miserably. For the first time, his eyes left hers, and he stared at the floor. "I'm sorry," he whispered again. "What I did was…very selfish. If I could have asked you…I should have had your permission, I know, but I…I couldn't stop myself somehow, when I found you like that." He looked at her again. "This must all be very strange."

"She's not scared, Carlisle," Edward said gently. When Esme glanced at him, his expression was amused, but he also looked nearly as embarrassed as she felt. _Sorry_, she thought, wondering why she couldn't feel blood rushing to her face.

"We don't blush," Edward explained. "Check for your pulse—you don't have a heartbeat either anymore, and you don't need to breathe."

Esme blinked. "You mean I can just…stop breathing, if I want to?"

"That part wasn't in _Dracula_, was it?" Edward said, grinning.

"Respiration does seem to be optional for us," Carlisle said. "It's useful to have a sense of smell though, when we're…hunting."

Hunting. For a split second, Esme was afraid, but then she looked at Carlisle and relaxed. "I can't imagine you hurting anyone," she said quietly.

"We don't," Carlisle agreed quickly. "When I was first changed myself, I resisted my thirst for as long as I could, until one night I discovered that it was possible for me to live on animal blood, as opposed to that of…humans. This house is several miles from Ashland, and the forest around us is full of game."

"So, I'll be eating…deer?" Esme wondered. She'd had a great-aunt who'd served her squirrel once, but Esme didn't find the thought of such a meal any more appetizing now than she had back then.

Edward snorted. "Well, you can. And squirrel probably would be a waste of time for the size of meal you'd get out of it, but herbivores aren't as tasty as carnivores."

"But isn't that dangerous?" Esme wondered. "I mean, I can't picture a…a vampire hunting with a gun." As soon as she'd said the word, Esme felt a strange sense of relief. Edward smiled encouragingly at her, and Carlisle sighed very softly, his relief palpable as he relaxed his tense position in his chair.

"Guns are for humans," Edward said lightly. "Trust me, we're fine by ourselves."

"Would you like to try it?" Carlisle asked, standing up and offering her his hand. "You must be thirsty."

"So, that's what that burning is," Esme said, rubbing her throat uncomfortably. Somehow, the sensation hadn't bothered her so much when she hadn't known it was her new body's way of telling her that she needed blood. However, taking Carlisle's hand certainly helped to dispel her discomfort. Standing up for the first time, Esme didn't feel stiff or clumsy—her new strength, which she was only beginning to be aware of, had made her graceful too. On a whim, Esme let go of Carlisle's hand and raced across the room—she was on the other side in less than a second. Then she spun around and came back—movement was so fast, so effortless.

"All right, I'm beginning to think I _can_ catch something," she said, grinning. Edward chuckled, and Carlisle, his smile radiant, took her hand again and led her out of the room and down the stairs. Glancing around the living room on the main floor, Esme saw countless objects she wanted to examine: there were books, paintings, a huge grand piano in the middle of the room, and there was even a gramophone with records stacked neatly beside it.

"Later, you can look all you want," Edward promised. "But I'd appreciate it if you didn't try playing the piano until you know your own strength a bit better."

"Of course," Esme said, wondering what he meant. Then they were outside, and thousands of different smells, all with different information to convey, assailed Esme's nose and mouth at once. She could smell a stream that she could hear was miles away—she could taste a faint trace of wood smoke in the air, and…

"Deer," Carlisle said quietly. "Can you tell where—"  
But Esme was already running in the right direction.

After breaking the necks and draining the blood of two bucks, the burning in Esme's throat became slightly less maddening, and she was able to stop and consider herself. She had just killed two deer—not even with her bare hands, but with her _teeth_—and now the brown dress she'd been wearing when Carlisle found her was soaked with blood, most of it deer blood, but some of it her own, which she'd lost in the final minutes of her human life. A part of Esme wanted to insist that she be horrified at killing two comparatively helpless animals, but the pragmatic part of her brain told her that it was better than killing people, while the self-conscious part of her noted that she was going to need a new dress soon, since between the blood stains and the tears it was accumulating, her current outfit was embarrassing trending toward outright indecent.

Edward did his best to keep upwind of her, because Carlisle explained that even beneath the stench of deer, the scent of human that clung to her clothes was still irritating for the younger vampire, who had only been changed three years before. Esme couldn't help but observe Edward's neat clothes and the graceful way he hunted; he and Carlisle both took down their own deer with ease and didn't make half the mess she had. _Will it take me three years to learn how to do that, or is will it be like my eyes?_ she wondered—Carlisle had already told her that her eyes would be golden like theirs in just a few months' time.

"Are you still thirsty?" Carlisle asked.

Esme shrugged. "A bit, but I feel much better now, thank you."

"Sorry if it seems like we're hovering," Edward said, grinning. "Carlisle's just remembering what I was like when I was a newborn."

Carlisle chuckled. "You were certainly…high-spirited."

"You mean I was a bloodthirsty lunatic," Edward said, his tone still amused but his expression grim now. "I drained half a dozen deer before either of us felt certain that I wasn't going to try to dash back to the city and go on a rampage that would take out half of Chicago."

"Is that where you're from?" Esme asked, not wanting to dwell on the image of a bloodthirsty vampire rampage.

"Yes," Edward said, his tone distant. "Carlisle found me just as I was about to die of

Spanish Influenza, like my parents had."

"I'm sorry," Esme said quietly, but Edward was already trying to look unconcerned.

"Carlisle saved me, just as my mother apparently ordered him to," Edward said, chuckling again.

Carlisle smiled. "Elizabeth Masen was a very…forceful person. That's where her son gets it."

Edward smiled at this, and as Esme watched them, she found herself feeling more relaxed than she had since the fire had ended. Whatever there was that she didn't yet know about her new life, she did know that Carlisle and Edward were both kind people who cared about each other; even the part of her that reveled in her newfound strength, in the knowledge that she could overpower them both if she had to, was satisfied that these two of her kind were not a threat. That thought led to another.

"Are there many of us?" she asked.

"Not many," Carlisle said. "At most, a few thousand throughout the world—we're careful to spread out so as not to attract attention."

"And do the others…" Esme trailed off, not wanting to say it out loud.

"Most of them drink human blood, yes," Carlisle said quietly, not needing Edward's power to know what she was thinking. "Resisting the temptation to do so is very difficult—it took me a long time to become inured to the scent, but I promise you it's possible. It just takes time, of which we have an endless supply—"  
"And herculean self-control if you want to be a doctor like Carlisle," Edward said drily.

"But the two of you, why do you live differently?" Esme wondered.

Edward was smiling again. "That's more Carlisle's story than mine. If anyone else had changed me, my life would have been very different."

"Should we go back to the house so you can…" Carlisle looked embarrassed, then motioned to her dress and cleared his throat awkwardly. "I asked Edward to find you some new clothes when he was in town for school yesterday."

Esme glanced at Edward. "School? Then shouldn't you be—"  
"It's Saturday," Edward explained. "Don't worry, I'm not getting in any trouble.

Though Carlisle's going to need to go back to work this week if he doesn't want to call attention to himself."  
"I told the hospital I wasn't feeling well," Carlisle explained. "They've gotten used to my odd bouts of illness. so they don't expect me back until Monday night. Until then, I'd like to take you hunting as much as possible."

"And you'll tell me about…all this?" Esme pressed, eager to hear how he'd been changed, what had led him to Edward, then to her…

Carlisle smiled. "Happily."

Esme smiled too, grateful for this chance to finally get to know someone she'd spent so many years dreaming about. Almost better still, it seemed that he was happy to see her too. Esme had been amazed that he'd even remembered her, but for him to be _happy_…it was better than she'd dreamed.

It happened as they were running back toward the house. Esme had loved running as a child—she would race downhill with her arms outstretched, moving so fast that she felt like she was flying—but now her speed was such that it was as if her feet barely touched the ground. Jumping was even better—once, as she leapt clear over a small oak tree, she felt almost as if she really were flying. Then she landed, and something caught her eye.

Half-buried in earth and dead leaves, Esme couldn't make out what it was at first. She'd been slow to realize that they'd left the house in the dead of night—it was a full moon, and very bright, but more than that, her eyes saw everything so clearly now. The moon had set, but every tree, every leaf appeared in sharp detail as if it were only inches away. But the thing under the leaves puzzled her for a moment. She'd gotten ahead of Carlisle and Edward, so she slowed and then stopped to examine the thing. Then she sank to her knees in front of it and found herself trying not to cry.

_Can I even cry now?_ she wondered, staring down at the tiny shoe of a child. It was very old, and Esme wondered how many years ago it had been lost—there was no trace of human scent left on it now, but the burning in her throat had been replaced by an even more uncomfortable tightening of the muscles there.

_Sob, see if you even can_, she told herself bitter. _How could you have tried to forget about him?_ But she knew how: her son had been a gift, and the day he'd been born had been one of the best days of her life. The day he'd died, however, had been the very worst, and now Esme knew that this the reason she hadn't wanted to remember what came before the fire—this pain, which had been unbearable as a human, was still nearly crippling as an immortal, but what was worse than knowing he was gone was knowing that already, she could barely remember him.

"Esme?" Edward called. He'd seen her, and suddenly he was at her side, wincing when he heard the tenor of her thoughts.

"Esme?" Carlisle cried—his tone of alarm distracted her momentarily, but Esme didn't move. Edward had remained standing, but Carlisle was crouched beside her, his face concerned.

"Just give her a minute," Edward said quietly.

"I'm all right," Esme whispered. She stood up, feeling unsteady for the first time since the change, and when Carlisle offered, she took his hand and tried to steady herself. He hesitated for a moment, but then he slid an arm around her shoulders and guided her gently back toward the house.

Even through her grief, Esme realized that she was rapidly becoming obsessed with the man beside her. For ten years, she'd been able to tell herself that her memories of their meeting had been the product of an overactive imagination, that had she gotten the chance to know him, she would have found that he was little more than a pretty face that had caught a lonely teenager's eye. Now she realized that none of her fantasies had done him justice. Of course he was perfection itself, physically, but more than that, he was so kind, so loving, and as she leaned against his shoulder, all she could think was that she never wanted to be away from him again.

Esme shook her head and tried to tell herself not to be delusional—as if he could ever see her the same way she saw him—then she set to thinking about her son again. _Every minute that passes, I'm getting further away from my human life, further from _him_,_ she told herself. _I have to try to remember…_

For now, Esme decided, she would use her newfound immortality to recall and try to crystallize the few happy memories she had left from her rapidly blurring human life. Later, she hoped, this new life could be about making new ones.


	5. Please Be Patient With Me

Hi everybody! Thanks for all the reviews of the last two chapters. This one's pretty different, structurally speaking, in the sense that it's from Edward's point of view, and rather than being confined to a single event, this chapter deals with a number of incidents that Edward witnesses in Esme's early days as a vampire. The overall effect is interesting, I think, but maybe a little bit disjointed—let me know what you think, if you get the chance. Thanks again and enjoy! 

Disclaimer: I do not own "Twilight," Stephenie Meyer does. Have I mentioned the dolls I'm making though? Yeah, I'm pretty sure I have. (I'm working on the Bella doll this weekend while I reread "New Moon"! ).

Five: Please Be Patient With Me

_"There's nothing I can do…to make this easier for you…"_

Edward's POV

When they got back to the house, Esme excused herself to change clothes. As soon as she had disappeared upstairs, Carlisle turned to Edward, his mind filled with frantic questions, most of which he tried to suppress on the grounds that they were too personal. Finally, he settled on the most benign query he could form.

_How is she?_  
Edward sighed. "She just wants some time to think about him in private, that's all. She's afraid of…forgetting. Not that there's much to remember," he said sadly. "Her son only lived a few days…"

Edward could hear Carlisle cursing himself for not making the connection sooner; he'd seen the signs of a recent pregnancy in the roundness of her face, her hips, not to mention the dress that was several sizes too big. But he hadn't connected a child to Esme's attempted suicide.

_When…_Carlisle started, and Edward answered before he could suppress the question. He understood his adopted father's desire to talk to Esme about this, but she was in no shape to talk just now, and Esme had told him herself that he could tell Carlisle—she'd guessed that it would be easier to talk about if there was less to explain. Then she'd apologized for the painful nature of her thoughts. Edward had nearly groaned aloud when he'd heard _that_ inside her head—frankly, Esme was far too nice for a vampire, let alone a newborn. Then again, the same could be said for Carlisle as far as kindness was concerned.

"Last Monday, she gave birth," Edward said quietly. "Her son died on Wednesday night, and by Thursday, he'd been cremated. She threw his ashes off a cliff before…before she jumped."

Carlisle ran his hands through his hair; watching, Edward knew that he'd saved Esme without thinking, without knowing the circumstances of her life before that fatal day. Carlisle didn't regret his actions for a second, but now, he was wondering if Esme did. Guilt was rapidly beginning to dominate his thoughts, and Edward decided that perhaps a bit more information would be helpful.

"Carlisle, she isn't angry with you," Edward said very quietly. He listened to Esme moving in the room above them—he didn't think she'd heard. "This life…she doesn't see it as a curse. She's grateful to you. The way she sees it, her human life was over, completely, and now she feels she has a second chance. For the first time, she'll be able to decide what she wants to do with her life."

Edward watched, surprised, when Carlisle seemed even more unhappy when he heard this. _But I did just that, didn't I? I made this decision for her, without any regard for what she wanted—_

"You made a decision that saved her life," Edward said firmly, leaving out his usual remarks about the nature of this so-called life. "Like I said, she's grateful. She's…happy."  
Carlisle stared at him, surprised. "Happy?"  
"I was sort of shocked myself at first," Edward said, smiling slowly. "But as soon as she woke up, she was glad to see you. She's…very perceptive—more perceptive than me in a way, in that she didn't have to be a mind reader to know that she could trust you."

Carlisle was still looking uncertain, but he seemed less miserable now. Edward sighed very quietly; it was unnerving to see Carlisle, who was usually so calm, in such a state of confusion. He didn't understand what the implications of how he felt about Esme might be, but he was determined not to say anything, afraid of what Esme's reaction might be.

Truthfully, if Edward hadn't known Carlisle as long as he had, or if he hadn't been able to hear his thoughts, he might have thought he'd lost his mind; that very day, he'd fallen in love with someone he'd first interacted with for only an hour or two a decade ago. But to Edward's astonishment, Carlisle was sincere, albeit resolved to not mention the subject to Esme. And she felt the same way, Edward had seen that much. From a human perspective, their feelings were irrational, if not outright ridiculous, and both Carlisle and Esme were trying accordingly to suppress the emotions they were only beginning to comprehend. But from what Carlisle had told Edward about vampires in general, it wasn't especially surprising: immortals were creatures who could live indefinitely, and who might go centuries without anything significant changing about their personalities or opinions. But when a change occurred, it would happen quickly and irreversibly. Relationships worked this way too. Now that Carlisle and Esme were together again, Edward guessed that they would never voluntarily separate again.

"You know," Carlisle said suddenly, his tone calmer now. "I'm a bit surprised myself at how quickly you've taken to Esme. I was worried that you…well, my decision to change her was so impulsive, I thought—"  
"You thought I wouldn't like her," Edward said incredulously, almost adding, 'I _know_ what you're thinking, you don't have to tell me, remember?' "I can hardly imagine anyone who wouldn't."

"Yes," Carlisle said quietly, almost raptly. "She's…wonderful." _And I'm very glad you like her, son._

Edward suddenly found himself feeling sheepish. Esme's obvious kindness wasn't the only reason he liked her.

"It's childish," he said slowly, "but I have to admit that I'm enjoying having someone else around who's the newborn for a change."

Carlisle smiled sympathetically._ I'm sorry Edward—I'm sure I've been insufferable __at times, but you've learned to handle your thirst even faster than I did._

"Because I had help and you didn't," Edward said, smiling slightly.

Carlisle nodded, barely conscious of the tone of deep respect in Edward's voice. _Now I'm going to need you to help me help Esme adjust as well as you have. In a little while, I should probably see if she'd like to go hunting again…_

Edward shook his head—when he compared Carlisle's thoughts to those of the humans he encountered every day, they were utterly humble and almost completely unselfish. He was determined to help Esme just as he'd helped Edward—that is, he was resolved not to let his affection for her allow him to become distracted from the business of teaching her about being a vampire. For now, keeping her away from people was of the utmost importance, in the interest of the safety of humans, but also to protect her from the guilt that would surely result if her thirst led her to kill someone. Edward shuddered at the thought himself; he didn't like to imagine what Esme's face would look like when she realized what she'd done, if she ever did it…

It depressed Edward a bit now when he thought back to his own newborn days; he had yet to slip up, so he had no guilt of that sort, but his treatment of Carlisle made him distinctly uncomfortable. He too had been wild with grief, but unlike Esme, it had taken Edward time to resolve to do the best he could in this new life; he'd been short-tempered if not downright surly with Carlisle for all of his first year, and he'd been moody well into his second. It was only in the past few months that Edward had really begun to feel something akin to resigned to this life. Being able to go back to school had helped, and he knew Carlisle had missed working full time, as he had before changing him, so his father's happiness had made him happy too. But Edward's guilt was based less in his own behavior than Carlisle's response to it.

Anyone else would have become impatient eventually, would have regretted saving him even; at least, that was how Edward saw the matter. But Carlisle had the patience of a saint, and looking back, it pained Edward to think that even on his worst days, Carlisle had been more than patient with him: he'd been _happy_ with him. After so many years of living a solitary life, Carlisle's loneliness was such that he was ecstatic just to have a companion, albeit a bad-tempered and unpredictable one. Now that he could look back on himself as he'd been just a few months before, Edward could see how lucky he was that he'd never had to live this life alone. That thought had led him to hope, for somehow he couldn't promise, that Carlisle would never have to be alone again either.

It was nearly sunrise before Carlisle went upstairs to knock on the door of the room that was Esme's now and asked if she wanted to hunt again. She agreed, and Edward heard their thoughts even more clearly than he had their quiet voices as they came down the stairs.

_He's so kind_, Esme thought—Carlisle had offered her his arm, and she'd looped hers through his, though she had no physical need for the support. _I wish I could tell him how grateful I am, how long I've wanted to see him again, to talk to him…and—oh, I'm sorry Edward._

_She's so…gentle_, Carlisle thought, genuinely surprised and delighted by the apparent ease with which Esme was adapting. At first, he only glanced at the new dress she'd put on, and marveled that she'd only torn off the first button before learning to reign in her strength a bit. Then his eyes began to linger on the curves beneath the dress, and then he promptly turned his head away, pretending to inspect the wainscoting. _Sorry, Edward._

Edward sighed very quietly. This was definitely going to take some getting used to.

It was very strange, and often amusing, to watch Esme in the early days of her newlife. Despite her grief, or perhaps even because of it, she was eager to learn all she could about the life of an immortal. There were moments when she looked very sad, and Edward could hear her thinking about her son, but most of the time, Esme was genuinely content in Carlisle and Edward's company. Though her loss had destroyed her as a human, in immortality, she was healing every day, though at an almost imperceptible pace.

Carlisle was delighted by her progress from the first. He answered all her questions honestly, and often in great detail, to which Esme listened eagerly, but at first, there were some subjects that made him hesitate. His age, for example.

The very first day of her new life, Carlisle had shown her into his study to tell her about his history. Edward had followed, much to Carlisle's amusement.

_You've heard this story in my head probably more than you'd care to remember,_ he thought.

"That just increases the novelty of hearing it told aloud," Edward said, shutting the door.

"He's heard this story before," Carlisle said in answer to Esme's curious look. _I'm going to have to remember to speak out loud from now on. _

"These paintings are…beautiful," Esme said quietly, transfixed by the canvases on the largest wall in the room. "What's this?"

She was pointing to the old wooden cross that Carlisle's father had carved.

"Er, that was my father's," Carlisle said. "He made it himself." _Now she's going to ask…_

Esme stared at the cross in silence for a moment. _His father made it? But it looks ancient…which means…_

"Carlisle, if you don't mind my asking, how old are you?"

Edward couldn't help it—he snorted with laughter when he heard what Carlisle's immediate thought was when he heard this: _I don't want her to think of me as being old!_  
"The ship has sailed on that Carlisle," Edward said, still snickering. "And anyway, you _are_ old."

"For an immortal I'm not very old," Carlisle said, his tone slightly defensive. Then he looked at Esme and smiled ruefully. "I…was born in the mid-seventeenth century, just before Cromwell's rule began. I'm not certain, but…I believe I'm about two hundred and eighty years old."

Carlisle cringed slightly when he said this, but Esme looked amazed rather than disconcerted.

"So…you've been how old for all this time?"

"Twenty-three," Carlisle said quickly. Edward rolled his eyes—it wasn't as if his nearly three centuries showed at all.

Now it was Esme's turn to look a bit dismayed. "I'm older than you—well, sort of. Physically, anyway."  
"Three years' difference bothers you but two hundred and eighty years' difference doesn't," Edward muttered, shaking his head at how ridiculous they both were. "Of course. That makes sense."

Both Carlisle and Esme had let the subject of age drop after that, but they were each a bit troubled by the difference between them. Each of them saw age as a small but not insignificant barrier keeping them apart, and to Edward's intense exasperation, both felt their own age was the problem: Carlisle worried that he was too old, while Esme was afraid of being too old physically and too young mentally. Of course, they were both too uncertain about themselves and their feelings to even contemplate what exactly age was keeping them from doing, so Edward was forced, in the first few weeks that Esme lived with them, to quite deliberately refrain from commenting on what was very clearly going on between the two.

On Monday, a cloudy day, Edward went to school, and Carlisle spent the day with Esme before leaving for the hospital at sunset. Edward was glad that he got home in time to see a brief break in the clouds before it got dark, because that meant he got to see Esme in the sunlight for the first time. It was beautiful and oddly touching to watch how delighted she was with the way her skin sparkled, but then she looked at Carlisle, who stood watching her from a few feet away, and for some time, her mind was a blank.

In fact, they'd stared at each other for so long that Edward was on the verge of creeping away and hoping that one or both of them managed to verbalize what they were thinking. But in the end, both remembered their audience and returned to the house with Edward who, unlike his companions, was more frustrated than embarrassed. _It's only a matter of time until one of them says something_, he thought wearily. Since Esme had come into their lives, Edward had been surprised to discover how two otherwise intelligent people could be so completely blind to the obvious.

The more he watched Esme, the more Edward noticed how different her early days were from the way his had been. She was calmer certainly, but more than that, Esme seemed grateful just for the presence of Carlisle and Edward. For Edward's part, he'd seen into the minds of his father and Esme enough to know what they felt for each other, but Esme's feelings for him had come as a bit of a surprise. At first, she was simply eager to accept and reciprocate his friendship, but Edward soon heard the tenor of her thoughts change: in just a few days time, Esme came to see him as her son, or as her child might have been had he grown up. Esme tried not think about it when Edward was nearby, and usually she only did so unconsciously, so Edward took it upon himself to acknowledge their relationship.

As Edward was leaving for school one morning, he turned and smiled at Esme as he shut the door behind him. "See you later, Mom," he said. Carlisle was at home too, and Edward left before either of them could respond verbally. But their thoughts were, as was frequently becoming the case, in perfect harmony. _Thank you, Edward_, they both said silently.

Esme didn't go to his graduation, but Carlisle and Edward both promised her that by the time he finished college, she would be safe enough to attend that ceremony. When he and Carlisle came home that day, she hugged them both before it occurred to her to be embarrassed about hugging the latter, and then they started packing. Canada was where a new house was waiting for them: Edward planned to take classes through a correspondence school for a year, after which Esme would be better equipped to live closer to humans.

Both before and after that first move, while Carlisle was at work, Edward and Esme had the evenings to themselves. They liked to talk, but of course little actual speaking had to be done in Esme's case. She wanted to know about his life before the change, but like her, Edward didn't really like to talk about that, so mostly, they read. Carlisle was forever adding to his library, and Esme was delighted to finally have the time to read as much as she wanted. Still, no matter how engrossed she was in her latest book, Esme always kept one eye on the clock. Edward knew from the glimpses he'd caught in their thoughts that when his father was at home and Edward was at school, Carlisle and Esme talked almost constantly. This talkativeness had surprised him not at all.

Initially, Esme had been very quiet when she was alone with Edward, and Edward would have guessed that she was shy if not for his extra ability. It was both amusing and troubling, really: like him, Esme loved to read, but for the first few months of her life as an immortal, she devoured books almost compulsively, sometimes finishing several each night. He couldn't understand it until he happened to hear the phrase, _'I have to catch up_,' in her thoughts one night.

"It's not a race, you know," he said quietly.

Esme jumped and he smirked; Carlisle was no longer surprised by his intrusions, no matter how unexpected.

"It's just…you both know so much more than I do," Esme murmured.

"Carlisle more than me," Edward pointed out. "I'm nine years younger than you, remember."

"Six, counting your years in this life," Esme said. "And Carlisle…"

"Esme, you haven't _had_ centuries to learn like he has," Edward said, refusing to avoid the issue any longer. "He doesn't think less of you for knowing less than he does."

Esme still looked concerned, but her thoughts seemed calmer as she returned to her book. For a few minutes, they were both quiet, and then it was Edward's turn to be surprised by a sudden thought.

_Do you mind if I move the furniture around a bit?_

"What?" Edward said blankly. "Why?"

"When it's sunny out, it might still be nice to sit by the window," Esme said patiently. "That's why I had you run into town to get curtains when we first moved."

Edward shook his head at the memory of the first time he'd gone shopping for Esme, on the day after Carlisle brought her home and realized she'd be needing new clothes. He couldn't remember which had been worse: the strong smell of humans in the crowded Ashland shop, or having to ask a sales clerk about buying ladies' undergarments.

"Esme, it's your house too," Edward said. "You can move whatever you'd like." _As long as you're in the room, Carlisle barely notices anything else anyway,_ he thought wryly.

So Esme moved the furniture. Not just once, but several times actually. That was what first got her thinking that it might be nice to have a new lamp or two, not that they needed the light to read by—she just thought it might look nice. Carlisle had studied art, but Edward guessed that his praise of the improvements she made to the house weren't entirely objective.

Esme was delighted with the process of making such changes even more than the praise: for the first time, she shared a house with people she really loved, and who cared for her too. So as the evenings passed, Esme made the new house more of a home. She moved the furniture, and then she starting building new furniture, and then Esme started sketching ideas for a new house.

Evenings like this were no less pleasant for being common, and Esme's loving, calming presence made Edward feel that he himself had finally cast off the last of his newborn wildness. But Esme herself was still a newborn: on one memorable afternoon, Edward made the mistake of racing her playfully for a mountain lion they both smelled a few miles away. She was faster than him, but when she caught it and saw him still approaching, she'd snarled at him threateningly. Edward and Carlisle had both waited at a distance, and as soon as Esme had drained her kill, her usual personality reasserted itself; consequently, she spent the next hour apologizing to Edward, and the next several days worrying that Carlisle thought she was more animal than woman, regardless of how many times they told her that she was progressing wonderfully.

It was, without question, the strangest, sweetest and most maddening thing that Edward had ever seen. He'd thought that he knew Carlisle very well, given that for three years, he'd had no one else to talk to, excluding the pleasantries he exchanged with humans, and of course he could read his mind. Edward admired his adopted father's compassion, and there were often times when he was awed by the sheer scope of the knowledge a person could acquire in nearly three hundred years. But since Esme had arrived, Carlisle had, in some ways, changed completely. Quite simply, Edward no longer admired his kindness and wisdom alone: he was amazed by Carlisle's newfound devotion to Esme, and his almost unselfish eagerness to make her happy. It wasn't completely unselfish, in the sense that Carlisle hoped that, in some dim, distant future, she would be able to return his feelings, but most days, he was simply delighted to see her smile.

One day, he brought home what looked like most of a flower shop for her, all the plants still alive and in pots, and Esme, delighted, had dashed out to the backyard to begin a garden, pausing only to thank him and touch his hand. Edward had watched, torn between amusement and sympathy, as Carlisle struggled not to dash after her and do something desperate: kissing her was the most desperate thing that Carlisle seemed to imagine, but he still apologized to Edward every time he knew he'd been caught.

But Esme was just as bad. Decorating the house was only the beginning: much as she reveled in her newfound freedom to live her life as she pleased, Esme missed Carlisle when he was away, and this sentiment was often tantamount in her home improvement projects. Once, in a single night, she built a second garage: Edward's car was housed in the first, while Carlisle had always parked in the drive. Not long after, Carlisle had mused that it might be nice to have a greenhouse: Edward knew that he'd been thinking out loud, wondering if Esme would want such a thing, if only so she could have flowers year round. But she'd built one before he could buy one, and both pretended to look forward to having flowers in the wintertime, though neither of them really cared very much: both were just happy to think that the other was happy.

The worst, and sadly, the most frequent thing Edward saw either of them thinking about was the certainty each felt that they weren't good enough for the other. The idea of giving either one more than a very vague hint made him uncomfortable, so as the weeks went by, Edward began spending more and more time either immersed in his studies or sitting in front of the piano. It was strange to feel alone in a house he shared with two other people, but when Edward thought about it later, he realized that that was what it was like. Still, Edward remained resolute: until one or both of them figured out what was going on, he was determined to keep his knowledge a secret.

The consciousness that he was the only one hiding something—and that no one he would ever live with could easily keep secrets in his presence—made Edward feel almost indescribably lonely. But as maddening as it could be, watching Carlisle and Esme had also given Edward something to hope for: granted, it was something he wasn't sure he believed in for their kind, let alone for himself, but as impossible as he found the idea, Edward wondered if he too would someday find someone to share eternity with. Like Carlisle, would he be transformed by the experience? And how long would he have to wait to meet that someone?


	6. 23 Seconds of Silence

Hi everybody—thank you so much for reviews, and sorry about the formatting issues in the last chapter, which I've since edited (not the right way though—thanks again Elise, because now I know how to do this ). I'm going to check this chapter first, so it shouldn't be a problem again (a pox upon Microsoft Word!).

Quick note about this chapter: it was definitely inspired by the part of "Breaking Dawn" where Bella starts to hunt some humans, but I thought that under similar circumstances, Esme might have behaved differently simply because of the ambiguous nature of her relationship with Carlisle during this period. Also, this is a pretty short chapter, so expect another update tomorrow. For now, enjoy, and Happy Birthday, America!

Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns everything. I'm just having a good time. 

Six: 23 Seconds of Silence

"…"

Carlisle's POV

It happened a little over three months into Esme's new life. Edward had stayed at home, immersed in his new textbooks, so Carlisle and Esme went hunting alone that day. It was cloudy, threatening rain, and a sudden gust of wind was what nearly brought about disaster.

For a split second, Carlisle barely registered the scent—he'd just gotten off a twelve hour shift at the hospital, and he was even more desensitized to the smell of humans than usual. But then he remembered Esme, and as he hurried to close the distance between them, he was afraid that he was already too late, too far behind her—

"Es—" he started, but she was already running, her speed more than a match for his. Still, he raced after her—they were less than a mile away from the humans they were smelling when he managed to get within an arm's length of her.

"Esme, wait!" he cried, trying to catch her arm. She turned and bared her teeth at him, and that was when Carlisle hesitated.

The human part of him was sympathetic, fearful—if she killed someone, he knew she would never forgive herself. But the vampire part reacted very differently. The second she bared her teeth, Carlisle found himself seized by a wild urge to snarl back, to attack her, push her to the ground and press his mouth to hers—

In the instant that Carlisle paused, trying to stifle this urge, Esme struck. She simply pushed him off the ledge they'd both leapt onto, and before he could recover himself, Carlisle felt his back smash into the rocks below, shattering them as he connected. But before the dust from the rubble had even cleared, Carlisle was on his feet again—it was unlikely, but there was still a chance that he could catch her, saving her from an eternity of guilt—

And there she was, still running, but not as fast as before. This time, Carlisle didn't hesitate: as soon as he'd caught up, he ran past her, then turned and shoved Esme against the nearest rocky outcropping. Stone shattered with the force of the blow, but Carlisle forced himself to hold her, to pin her arms to her sides instead of releasing her, though an apology was already forming itself on his lips. To his amazement, she barely struggled, though she had the strength to get away. In fact, she all but froze the instant he touched her.

"Hold your breath and close your eyes," he said very quietly. "That helps."

Esme did as he suggested, and for several moments, they simply stood there in silence. Less than half a minute passed, but time seemed to slow as Carlisle realized that in addition to holding her arms, he'd pinned her body to the rock with his own. This was…distracting, to say the least. For one thing, the vampire part of him was suddenly snarling its approval, and Carlisle reluctantly admitted that even the human part of him couldn't complain at the arrangement. In an effort not to think about how it felt to have her so close, Carlisle cleared his throat very quietly. Esme opened her eyes.

"Are you all right?" he whispered, even though the humans, though close, weren't close enough to hear. Still, the sudden closeness to Esme, if nothing else, made him feel that they were very much alone. She nodded, her eyes wide.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, already feeling bitterly guilty. "I should have been more careful. You're sure you're not hurt?"

Esme snorted and rolled her eyes, which made him smile, though only slightly. True, she was almost indestructible, but as a human, she'd been injured so many times, overpowered by her husband—he hated to do anything even remotely similar, no matter how necessary. Still, he couldn't bring himself to move away just yet—the humans were moving and the scent was almost gone, but Carlisle couldn't imagine when he would have the chance to get this close to her again. Besides, it was for the sake of the humans, not to mention to protect Esme from unnecessary guilt. As the humans moved further away, this became an increasingly feeble excuse to keep her pinned to a boulder, and eventually, Carlisle was forced to admit that it was time to let her go. Hesitantly, he released her arms and stepped away cautiously, in case she went looking for the scent.

Esme was staring at the ground, her expression stricken.

"What is it?" he whispered anxiously.

Impossibly, Esme looked like she was about to cry. "I _hit_ you," she managed at last.

Carlisle sighed, relieved. "Oh," he breathed, tentatively putting his hands on her shoulders. "Esme, you didn't hurt me. I'm not as strong as you, but I'm all right. I was just…surprised. That was why I took a moment to catch up. Wait…" A thought occurred to him suddenly. "Did you slow down because you were worried about me?"

Esme bit her lip. "As soon as I couldn't hear you behind me, I wanted to go after that…the scent. But there was still a part of me that knew I might have hurt you, and…I was afraid. Not enough to stop completely, but the thought did slow me down a little."

"That's…" Carlisle tried to think of an appropriate word for it. "Incredible. Esme, believe me, that took amazing self-control. I'm not sure I could have done it as newborn, nor Edward."

"Did he…" Esme trailed off guiltily. She couldn't bring herself to finish the question, but Carlisle smiled—it wasn't a fond memory exactly, but it would certainly have seemed comical to anyone watching.

"Edward attacked me a few times when he was a newborn," he said lightly. "He wasn't trying to hurt me exactly, he just…well, it was like that time you thought he was going after your mountain lion. When we're young, our kind seem to be extremely territorial—I think most of us tend to stay in one place, or within a certain hunting range until we've adjusted to our newfound strength and abilities. When I was a newborn, I certainly destroyed more than my fair share of English countryside when I wasn't decimating the local deer population."

Esme finally smiled slightly at this. "You know, I have a hard time imagining you like that—uncontrolled, I mean, or angry." Then her smile faded. "And I don't really like imagining you alone for as long as you were. I mean…I can't imagine doing this by myself."

"Resisting, you mean?" he asked quietly.

Esme nodded. "How long did it take you before…before you were completely safe around humans?"

Carlisle thought for a moment. "It was many years…and close to a century before I was certain I could practice medicine without ever losing control. But the scent of blood is more powerful than just the scent of humans. It was only a few years before I could live among humans without fear of discovery, and Edward's proof of that too. This is only his third year, but he was able to finish school."

Esme smiled sadly. "But what if you two are exceptions to the rule? I mean, what if I'm not…" she trailed off helplessly.

"You're just a few months old, Esme," Carlisle said firmly. "I promise you that it won't always be like this. A year from now, you won't know yourself, at least as far as your instincts are concerned. But believe me when I say that already, you're doing marvelously."

Esme smile was more genuine now. "Well…thank you, Carlisle. For everything." Just then, she looked up at the sky—the clouds were beginning to thin. "I suppose we'd better get back." Then, without a word, she took his hand. He smiled nervously—the urge to kiss her was suddenly almost overpowering again—and her own expression was radiant.

_Thank_ you, he almost said. _For not hating me_. _For_…

'Love' was the only way he could describe it. He wanted to thank her for being the cause of this bewildering new feeling, so different from the love he felt for Edward. He wanted to tell her, to say the word right now and finally admit everything he'd been thinking for months, but he couldn't yet. Not today, not after what had just happened—he couldn't guess why she'd taken his hand, or at least he didn't know if anything stronger than friendship were behind it, and until he did, he feared the consequences of imposing unwanted feelings on her.

Frankly, he was still feeling a bit dazed from their closeness a few minutes ago, not to mention the relief he felt at her not having killed anyone. Maybe she was still a bit giddy from such a near miss herself. But that small human gesture of taking his hand in hers had made future prospects seem much brighter; she might not love him now, but someday, he would tell her, and for the first time, he wasn't certain that he knew how she would respond.

_______________________________________

Reviews make me smile! Thanks for reading!


	7. We're Just Friends

Hi, this is Lisa! Just a quick note: please let me know in review form if I messed up on some dates in this chapter—I'm pretty sure I'm okay, but not 100%. Thanks as always for reviews, and here's chapter seven—see you next week! (Also, I've got a new Carlisle/Esme fic I'm working on—look for that sometime soon… )

Seven: We're Just Friends

"_If love's so easy, why's it hard? I can't imagine…ever being apart…"_

Esme's POV

In her first few months as a vampire, Esme tried, usually unsuccessfully, to remember bits of her human past; she could recall very little, and other than the vivid recollections she had of Carlisle and her son, she couldn't remember much that had been happy in her human life. After she'd met the doctor she would spend a decade dreaming about, Esme remembered that her life had seemed to grow progressively worse as each year passed.

1912, thirteen and fourteen all passed relatively uneventfully, save for the fact that her parents pushed her toward marriage a bit more forcefully each year. Esme had refused to relent, however. She knew what she wanted to do with her life, and it didn't include marrying one of her father's colleagues: she wanted to teach, and maybe someday find a certain doctor…but of course, that was just a dream.

Esme remembered that in 1917, her mother had fallen ill. Cancer, the doctors told them—she wouldn't last more than a few months. Upon hearing this, Esme remembered the way her mother had quietly, but very firmly told her that before she died, she wanted to see her only child married. So the next time her father introduced her to a man at a party, she'd encouraged his attentions. A few weeks later, she accepted his proposal of marriage, and just like that, she was married to Charles Evenson.

Remarkably, Esme's mother had lived until the summer of 1920, and a few months later, her father, a quiet, distant man who Esme had never considered the least bit passionate, passed away as well. People said he'd died of a broken heart, but Esme couldn't imagine that could be the case. Of course, by then, reality had long since ceased to make much sense. Her parents left her everything, but it seemed she'd hardly turned around before Charles had spent all her money—_their_ money, he always told her. He was always like this. No matter what her parents had said about Charles, no matter how much they'd approved of him, by the end of their honeymoon, he'd began to show his true colors.

He drank heavily, he gambled, and sometimes he hit her without provocation, but to Esme, the most frightening thing about Charles was that he didn't _look_ like what he was. To all the world, at least by day, he was a good employee and a responsible citizen who was a credit to the city of Columbus; he didn't _look_ like an abusive man, and it was only at night, after he'd done his drinking in a bar just outside of town, that he came home to bully his terrified wife. He was careful too, only striking her in places where clothing would cover bruises. And Esme stayed, not because she loved him, or had _ever_ loved him, but because Charles was what her parents wanted--that was what they told her, when she first went to her mother and said that he'd hit her. On that day, something had happened between Esme and her parents: a part of her still wanted their approval, but she ceased to love them the day that they told her to go home to Charles and try harder to please him. Time had passed, and Esme had concluded that she just had to keep trying, had to endure as best she could, and then Charles would be happy, and her parents would be happy, and then she might be happy too. If she became the perfect wife, then maybe the nightmare would end.

The next three years came and went with little change in this situation. Looking back, Esme could see that she'd _known_ then that she should leave, that she needed to escape before he killed her, but a kind of apathy had settled over after the first year or two. Because really, if she left, where was she going to go? Her parents wouldn't take her back, and she had no other family; she had no close friends, or at least none that would believe the truth about Charles—all her friends were married to his friends, and if she tried to tell them what he was, they'd think she was crazy.

So she read. She cleaned. She kept quiet as much as possible, she did her best to keep body and soul together while sharing a house with Charles Evenson, the terror of her existence, and she tried not to cry when he forced himself upon her at night. She tried to stop thinking about time. The past was gone, and the future was something that wasn't worth contemplating. So she lived from day to day, and instead of thinking about tomorrow, she thought about _him_. The angel she'd met one day, so many years ago…

Then, towards the end of 1920, Esme discovered that she was pregnant. That memory was a vivid one too: the feeling of suddenly waking up from a bad dream, of realizing that she wasn't trapped, not really, and that now she had to leave, if not for her own life, then for the sake the new one growing inside her. She'd taken some money and some things to sell when she'd left, and that had gotten her to Ashland. Her parents sent someone after her when Charles told them she'd run off, but she'd been warned of the danger in time by a friend, so she'd kept her head down, even dyed her hair for a while to avoid detection, and after a while, she began to feel safe again. The school in Ashland was a small one, but they'd needed another assistant teacher, so for a few months, she'd had a life—not a happy one exactly, but she was living again, rather than merely existing. The news of her parents' deaths shook her, but she didn't go to either funeral; she couldn't risk Charles catching her, not now, when the future was what mattered, not the past. As the months passed, she began to dream of the angel more than ever, the one she would find someday, who would help her raise her child.

1921 was the end and the beginning of all her hopes. She'd had three days with him, just three days with her tiny son who no one but her had expected to live very long. But in the little time they'd had together, he'd become her whole life—the moment she'd looked into his eyes for the first time, he became the center of her world, and in those three almost blissfully happy days, she'd daydreamed about watching him grow up, of someday finding and introducing her son to the man she'd named him after.

The first time Edward had heard _that_ thought, he'd gasped audibly and Esme and had covered her face with her hands. She wasn't embarrassed, just sad, and guilty for exposing Edward to her memories of the last few hours of her life: how she'd held her son as he died, how empty she'd felt in those rare moments when the crushing waves of grief she was drowning in had seemed about to subside…and then she'd jumped, and that was it. She hated thinking about it, but sometimes she remembered involuntarily, and then she'd hear Edward wince, which made it worse, knowing that her painful memories were painful to someone else as well.

"You don't have to apologize, Esme," he told her one night while Carlisle was at work. His tone was sincere, but also rather exasperated. "I know you can't exactly help it."

Esme reluctantly swallowed her apology. "It's…I don't want to remember, but I'm terrified of forgetting too. That sounds strange, I know—"

"No it doesn't," Edward said quietly, and in answer, she touched his hand. It was so easy to get caught up in her own past, to forget that Edward was still grieving too.

"But you might consider telling him sometime," he said abruptly.

Esme raised her eyebrows. "What?" she said blankly.

"Carlisle," Edward said patiently. "You should tell him—"

"No," Esme said flatly, suddenly mortified. "Tell him that I've been obsessed with him for more than a decade? That I named—" She bit her lip to stifle a sob. "No, I'd prefer he didn't know. It would just—he'd be sad if he knew. Just like you are."

Edward couldn't argue with that. For a while, they didn't speak, but then he changed the subject again.

"It's almost your birthday," he said.

Esme looked at him, curious. "What, birthdays still count with us?"

"Not really," Edward said, shrugging. "Carlisle always wants to celebrate mine, but he knows _I_ don't want to, so he does it very inconspicuously. Last year, he was careful not to think about it, so I didn't know what he'd gotten me until I looked outside and saw it."

"Your car?" Esme wondered. Edward might not like birthdays, but she knew he loved that particular gift. His biggest complaint with correspondence school was that he had fewer excuses to drive anywhere.

He nodded, looking both amused and exasperated. "Every year, I say 'no gifts,' and every year…"

"So, what kind of things do you get him?" Esme said, trying to sound innocent. "I mean, when is his birthday?"

Edward's expression suddenly grew serious. "He doesn't know."

Esme stared at him. "He…can't remember?"

"No," Edward said. "It's just because he was born so long ago. His family wasn't nobility by any means, and in those days, only the very wealthy and very powerful noted exact birthdays."

Esme was amazed. "But I've seen you give him things."

"Books," Edward said simply. "Books and a painting once, but that wasn't because of any occasion, and usually they're things that he'd asked me to pick up if I was going into town. He could just as easily get them himself, but…"

Edward looked thoughtful for a moment. "I suppose he knows that I'd like to give him something in return for all he's done for me," he said quietly. Then his mood shifted again and he smiled. "Of course, it's not exactly a gift if it's something I'm buying with _his_ money, is it?"

Esme was thinking hard. She wasn't sure Carlisle would be happy, but she also couldn't imagine he'd be unhappy, so maybe…

"I think I know what I'd like to do for my birthday," Esme said, smiling at Edward, who was already grinning.

"Good idea," he said, returning to his book with a smile.


	8. I'm The Man Who Loves You

Hi, sorry about the late update—took a trip this weekend, and we got back later than I thought we would, so I kind of just went to sleep last night instead of getting online. After this, only two chapters left, but I'm working on a series of one-shots right now that are pretty interesting so far, if I do say so myself. So look for the last two chapters of this fic sometime at the end of this week (maybe Friday?), and then new C/E stories starting next weekend.

Thanks as always for all your wonderful reviews (especially the helpful notes I received about dates—I'll make some corrections tonight after I post this chapter). Similar request for this chapter—how old was Carlisle in 1922? He's 362 in "Twilight," isn't he? So I think I'm okay, but just making sure…

Happy reading and have a good week!

Disclaimer: I don't own "Twilight," Stephenie Meyer does (and she is awesome).

Eight: I'm The Man Who Loves You

"_And if I could you know I would just hold your hand and you'd understand—I'm the man who loves you."_

Carlisle's POV

It had been a long, unpleasant day at the hospital. Since it had been a cloudy morning, Carlisle had agreed to fill in for another doctor on what would have been his day off, and from the start, it had been one of those days that made Carlisle sorry that he'd have an eternity to remember it.

There were no easy patients: it seemed that everyone was either very ill or very badly hurt. Then a family, all victims of a house fire, had been brought in, and what had started as a trying day became heartbreaking. Both parents had died at the scene, having inhaled too much smoke while trying to save their children. It had been early morning when it happened, and no neighbors lived close enough to help in time—consequently, five orphaned children had been carried in by friends and neighbors, all badly burned, and three of them had died by the end of Carlisle's shift. He doubted that either of the remaining two would be alive by the time he returned the following night, and in Carlisle's view, this was something of a blessing; the burns that the two had suffered were excruciating, and their recovery process, assuming they lived, would be long and agonizing. The plight of the two children aside, Carlisle was disturbed by his reaction to their circumstances—if they'd just been a year or two older, he could have helped, he could have—

Carlisle took a deep, steadying breath before he entered the house—he didn't want Edward to hear the particulars of his day, which he was already working on banishing from his own mind. Of course he couldn't forget, not really, but since Esme had joined them, it was easier not to dwell on painful things. Edward too was calmer, happier, and Carlisle was cheered beyond measure every time he found the two of them at home, waiting for him. He sometimes wondered how he could be so lucky, how after so many years alone he'd quite suddenly found himself the member of a family.

Of course, the relationships between the members of the Cullen family were something Carlisle tried not to think about too closely; Edward was like a son to him, of course, and Edward had the same relationship with Esme. Esme, who Carlisle had changed, and who he had never for a second considered his child. To his unspeakable relief, it seemed that Esme had never seen him as a father figure either, but then what was he? _Does she think of me as a brother?_ That was an unpleasant thought. But Carlisle couldn't help but wonder—_after all, she sees Edward as her child too. Doesn't that mean—?_

Carlisle shook his head; though this particular train of thought was a welcome distraction from the horrors of the day, it could be painful just the same—after all, he'd promised himself long ago that he wouldn't get his hopes up, that he would never bother Esme about what was very probably an unrequited attraction.

When he opened the door, he saw Edward sitting in the living room, a book in his hands, and he could hear Esme doing something upstairs. Carlisle sighed, very quietly. There was nothing to equal the feeling of having people to come home to. Edward rolled his eyes at the thought but smiled anyway.

"Welcome home," he said without looking up.

"Thanks," Carlisle said, hanging up his coat and hat. "How was your day?"

"Good," Edward said, shrugging noncommittally. "So far, college isn't proving to be as challenging as I'd expected—I can probably finish four years in two."

_Edward, that's wonderful_, Carlisle thought. He'd noticed early on that Edward seemed to accept silent praise more readily than verbal expressions of approval.

Edward shook his head, his face a bit more serious now. "I won't ask you about your day."

"Sorry," Carlisle said, sitting down. His first instinct had been to go look for Esme, but he wasn't quite ready to see her just yet—he felt that there was something off about his face, that his expression would tell her immediately that something was wrong.

Edward shrugged. "I didn't hear anything specific, just that it was bad and that you didn't want to think about it in front of me."

Carlisle nodded—now that it had been mentioned, it was harder not to think about the day, but he kept himself occupied by conjugating Latin verbs. Edward rolled his eyes again, but Carlisle could sense his gratitude.

"Esme's upstairs," Edward said abruptly. "She said there was something she wanted to show you."

Curious, Carlisle looked more closely at his son. Edward's expression was hard to read, but he seemed almost…smug. Whatever it was, Edward was both amused and pleased about it.

"I'll see you later, then," Carlisle said, feeling he needed to say something to keep himself from running up the stairs. He made his way to the top of the house at an almost human pace, trying not to guess what was waiting for him, and then he stopped in front of Esme's room and knocked on the door.

"Come in," she called. Her voice sounded oddly distant. Carlisle opened the door and went inside, only to find the room…empty. Just then, he happened to glance out the window, and there was Esme, perched on the sill.

"Up here!" she called, and then she hopped easily onto the roof. Carlisle opened the window and followed her without a second thought, and to his surprise, he found that the roof was covered with candles. It looked as though Esme had lit hundreds, and though it was January, an early thaw had enabled her to affix the candles to the shingles with melted wax. The effect of stars above and candles below was strangely disorienting, like standing between two mirrors, but it was beautiful too. He met Esme's eyes at last and saw that she was smiling rather shyly.

"It's my birthday today," she said simply.

Inwardly, Carlisle cursed—he'd seen her medical records, he should have noted the date—

"—and you're going to help me celebrate," Esme said, smiling.

Carlisle blinked. "I am?"

"Well, I'm hoping you will," Esme said, suddenly looking shy again. "I mean, well—let me show you what Edward made."

Turning around, she handed him a box tied shut with a ribbon.

"But it's _your_ birthday," he protested. "I should be—" But he fell silent at the sight of her face, alight with expectation.

"Just open it," Esme said eagerly.

Carlisle opened the box to find a single piece of paper.

"It isn't real," Esme said by way of explanation. "Edward found a picture in a book and copied it from that."

Carlisle stared, transfixed, at the paper. It was, to his amazement, a birth certificate. Yes, it was a fake, but it certainly looked convincing.

"According to Edward's gift," he said quietly, "I am two hundred and seventy eight years old, as of…today." He looked up at Esme. "You're giving me your birthday?" he whispered.

Esme shrugged. She seemed more pleased than shy now. "If you don't mind sharing, then yes."

Carlisle stared at her for a moment before speaking again. "I didn't get you anything," he confessed suddenly. "I didn't know—"

Esme pressed a finger to his lips, and he stopped talking. He stopped breathing too, feeling grateful that it wasn't necessary. If the breeze blew her scent toward him now, then he was fairly certain that what remained of his self control would be completely obliterated.

"All I want," Esme said quietly, "is for us to enjoy the rest of our birthday."

So they sat and looked at the stars. A light breeze blew out a few of the candles, but most of them continued burning as Carlisle and Esme seated themselves on the peak of the roof and stared up at the sky.

"It's amazing," Esme murmured after several minutes of silence. "When I was human, my eyes couldn't even see some of these, they're so faint. I never really noticed most the colors either. Beautiful, isn't it?"

"Yes," Carlisle said quietly, and then he forced himself to look up at the sky again.

Some time later, Esme glanced at her watch. "It's five till midnight. Anything else you'd like to do today?"

Carlisle smiled weakly—the moment was too perfect, it was finally going to happen because he simply couldn't wait any longer—

"Just one thing," he whispered, and then he leaned toward her. Carlisle heard her stop breathing, but she didn't jerk her head away, so he slid closer, not wanting to have the chance to second guess himself, and then she moved closer too, her mouth was an inch from his—

And then he kissed her, and in a gesture that he would always recall with amazed delight, she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him back. Her hands gripped his shoulders first, but then she slid them up into his hair, pulling him closer as his own hands dropped to her waist and shifted her so they were pressed together more securely—what was left of common sense had just reminded him that they were sitting on the roof. The fall wouldn't hurt either of them, but the last thing Carlisle wanted was for anything to interrupt this moment.

He wasn't certain how long they kissed, but eventually, Carlisle drew away gently.

"Esme," he whispered, resting his forehead against hers, "I love you."

Esme took a deep, shaky breath, her eyes so close to his that they looked huge, and almost luminous, even in the dim light. "You do?" she said in a small voice.

He smiled and hugged her closer. "Since the day we met. I would have said so before, but I—I wasn't sure that you could forgive me."

She blinked. "Forgive you for what?"

"Leaving you," he whispered fiercely. "If I'd changed you that day—"

"You would have regretted it," she said softly. "You always would have wondered what kind of life you'd deprived me of."

"But now that I know what your life was—" he began miserably, but then she silenced him with another kiss.

"Carlisle," she said gently when they finally drew apart again, "my life was far from perfect, but I got to know you, and I got to know my son. I wouldn't trade that for anything. If you'd changed me back then, we both would have wondered what might have been, and you would have felt guilty for it, so don't feel guilty now. You _did_ do the right thing, letting me live my life. I'm just so glad you were there when it was over."

Her voice broke a little as she finished speaking, and he hugged her close again. It felt so strange, so impossibly wonderful that she should be here with him now, when they might so easily have never met again. But then a thought occurred to him, an unpleasant but very likely conclusion to his confession.

"Esme," he said gently, "I understand if…if you don't feel the same as I do. If you tell me so, then nothing needs to change. We can go on as before, as…as friends."

He stared down at the shingles below them—maybe if he didn't meet her eyes then the lie wouldn't be so obvious. But then he looked up when Esme, who sounded as if she'd bitten back a sob, suddenly laughed.

"Carlisle," she said, her voice shaking with laughter now—he froze when she touched either side of his face with her hands—"I love you too."

Carlisle stared at her, and for one wild moment, he felt so relieved, so euphoric, that he felt certain he was about to float off the roof and drift away to a place where things like this actually happened. "You—really?"

"I—I didn't want to tell you," she stammered between giggles. He was grinning now too—this was impossible…

"Neither did I," he said. "I mean…I was afraid you only saw me as a friend, or a sibling, or…something."

"That's what I thought you thought," she said, her voice both amused and exasperated as she dropped her head against his chest. "Oh, and now it's obvious, Edward's been dropping hints for weeks—"

"You're right," Carlisle said, shaking his head at his own obliviousness. "I wondered why he kept suggesting we go hunting together—"

"And going out, leaving us alone," she murmured, smiling up at him. "Oops."

Carlisle laughed again, and so did she. The way she was holding him thrilled him more than he could articulate—having her so close at last was wonderful, but to have her hold him as tightly as he held her, as if she too were afraid that this was some illusion that could vanish if they didn't hold on tight…

He looked down at her, and he saw clearly, at last, that she really did want him as much as he wanted her. Their next kiss was fiercer, more possessive, and Carlisle remembered too late that she was still stronger than he was.

"Oops," she said again, this time her voice small and mortified. Carlisle tried desperately for a moment not to laugh, but then the fact that she'd pushed him back against the roof so hard that they were now in the attic registered fully, and after a moment, she was laughing with him, her head sunk down onto his chest, the rest of her spread out quite comfortably on top of him. Very comfortably…

"Esme," he said quietly, pulling himself out from under her before they could go any further—he was eager enough to do just that, but now he wondered if the house would still be standing when they finished. "We—"

"Edward," she said, nodding.

_Oh, that too_, he thought sheepishly.

"I heard that," Edward called from the attic steps. "And was that crash I heard a moment ago something I should worry about?"

"No," Carlisle said easily, standing up and pulling Esme to her feet. She apparently hadn't heard Edward coming, and now Carlisle had the distinct impression that she was almost frozen with embarrassment.

"Are you all right?" he whispered, though he knew she wasn't hurt.

"The roof," she said faintly, glancing up at the hole before burying her face against his chest again. "I'm sorry, I'll re-shingle tomorrow—"

"Esme, will you marry me?" he whispered.

She looked up at him, shocked. "What?"

"Please," he said, his voice low, almost a growl. "I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life—the rest of eternity with you. And the next time we throw ourselves at each other, I'd prefer that neither of us felt any reason to hesitate."

For a split second, Esme looked elated, but then her face seemed to crumple.

"Oh," she murmured miserably. "Carlisle, I…I—"

"What's wrong?" he whispered anxiously.

Suddenly, Edward appeared at the top of the stairs; Carlisle had heard him withdraw until he was out of earshot, but now here he was, watching them sympathetically.

"Esme," Edward said gently, "It's a personal question, I know, but did your wedding vows contain the phrase 'till death do us part'?"

Esme looked rather stunned. "They—yes, they did."

Edward smiled triumphantly. "Well then, you have no pulse, no heartbeat, and Carlisle signed a death certificate with your name on it months ago. You're dead. So there's no problem."

Carlisle, who finally understood what had worried her, was relieved beyond measure when she began to smile again. He almost never even spared a thought for that abomination of a man who had been Esme's human husband, and even now, he felt only a split second's worth of anger before he was mesmerized by her face again, looking up at him now with such happiness, such love.

"Of course I'll marry you," she murmured, taking one of his hands and kissing it, a gesture that further hypnotized Carlisle, though he noticed Edward shifted uncomfortably beside them. "But I have one condition."

"And that is?" Carlisle asked, smiling. He had a guess, and he suspected he was right, because Edward looked pleased but even more embarrassed now as well.

"We get married tomorrow," she said, dropping his hand to stroke his face. "I have very little interest in where or how or what we wear, but I see no reason to wait any longer."

"Ten years is far too long," he agreed, raising his eyebrows when she snorted.

"Not as long as two hundred and fifty," she protested. "Let's just agree that we're both in a bit of a hurry."

Carlisle grinned, still amazed at the way she was looking at him now: like she'd been waiting for him to hold her like this for so long, that she couldn't wait to get closer, to loosen his tie and—

Edward cleared his throat as she leaned up to kiss him again. "Excuse me, but if you two are getting married in a few hours, then we have things to do."

Esme nodded and drew away reluctantly. "I suppose I should go put out the candles before an errant breeze catches them and they burn the house down."

"I'll help," Carlisle said, hopping through the hole in the roof after her before Edward could protest. They would deal with the candles, and then they would enjoy a few moments alone, and then they would go back inside and prepare for their wedding.

Reviews are just delightful!


	9. In a Future Age

Hi there! Thanks for reviews, and here's the second to last chapter—the last one is really short, so I'm posting that tonight too. This is another chapter from Edward's POV, so it's a bit long, and there's a lot of thinking/Edward listening to Esme's thoughts—I really like writing these.  Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own "Twilight," Stephenie Meyer does. Also, I'm really excited for "New Moon." Is it November yet? WHY ISN'T IT NOVEMBER YET?!?!

Nine: In a Future Age

_"Let's turn our prayers to outrageous dares and mark our page in a future age…"_

Edward's POV

Clouds obscured the sunrise on the morning after Carlisle's proposal, much to Esme's relief.

"You realize that you must be the only bride in the world _hoping_ to get married on a rainy day," Edward told her as he helped her to get ready—at dawn, Carlisle had gone ahead to the church in the nearby village to wait for them and arrange for the ceremony. He and Esme had been reluctant to part, even for an hour or two, but as Edward had reminded them, only half-seriously, it was bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding. In any case, Esme had been marginally less distracted since Carlisle left, though she had little interest in her wardrobe at the moment.

"Some people like rainy days," Esme said, the distracted tone of her voice hinting at what Edward could already hear in her thoughts. _Let's see, something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue, you're supposed to do that—I didn't before…really, should I even wear white?_

"Yes," Edward said quietly. "The way I see it, this is your first real wedding, Esme."

Esme turned to smile at him, and then she hurried away from her closet and threw her arms around him. She didn't say anything aloud, but that was easier, in a way. _I'm so glad you're here, Edward. With you, today really is perfect._

"You look very handsome, by the way," she said softly, moving away to straighten his tie unnecessarily.

He laughed. "And I'm sure you'll look nice too once you finally pick out something to wear. Wait a minute, I'll be right back."

As soon as Edward disappeared, he heard Esme pull a simple white dress out of the closet—it was something new, an outfit she'd sent away for, and she'd planned to wear it…well, there hadn't really been a specific occasion in mind. _Or maybe I_ was _thinking of an event like this, subconsciously anyway._ Edward smiled when he heard that; it was hard to give her much privacy when her thoughts were so euphoric. And honestly, after months of listening to her worry, he was enjoying the chance to hear her when she was so happy.

As Edward rummaged in his closet, looking for a certain box, he could hardly help but overhear more of her thoughts. Ever since she and Carlisle had told each other the truth the night before, it had seemed so obvious to Esme, and more than a little ridiculous that she hadn't seen this coming, or rather had spent so much time and energy trying to convince herself that it was impossible, that he couldn't feel the same way she did. Now that she knew he did, more than a decade's worth of anxiety and self-doubt had disappeared. Esme was amazed that Carlisle loved her, and she was eager to spend the rest of eternity loving him in return, but as impossible as it would have seemed the day before, she was _confident_ that he loved her now, quite simply because he'd told her so. _The way he looked at me, the way he kissed me…there's no doubting that._ Edward shook his head—he did _not_ want to hear about what kissing Carlisle was like.

In retrospect, Esme thought that there should have been no mistaking the looks of desperate longing that she'd sometimes seen on his face. But they'd passed so quickly, and incited such desperation in her than it had been easier to pretend she'd imagined such things. Now there was no more need to pretend, no more need to suppress these feelings. Edward heard her draw a stray piece of paper from a dresser drawer and write 'Mrs. Esme Cullen' in large, looping script. _That looks…nice_, she thought, giggling to herself. It wasn't the first time she'd tried out this signature, Edward knew that without her having to think about it directly, but the knowledge that it would be her real name in just a few hours time was making her feel almost dazed. _She's practically drunk with happiness_, Edward thought, grinning again. For once, being able to hear the thoughts of someone was oddly pleasant, rather than just embarrassing or disconcerting.

Edward found what he was looking for and turned to leave the room. He could hear Esme pull on the dress and begin to run a brush through her hair, pleased with her reflection as she did so. Edward realized that for the first time, she was really enjoying the beauty of an immortal: the eyelet lace of her dress, the hem of which stopped just above her knees, set off her pale skin wonderfully—contrasted with actual white, her usual pallor looked almost human—it was the pale complexion of a nervous bride she saw now, rather than the chalky whiteness of an ancient, flawless statue. And her hair…when she'd been alive, she'd often hated her hair for its shapelessness, but now she had no complaints—it was thick now, some tendrils almost curly, and its color complemented the honey color of her eyes exquisitely. There was no trace of vanity in any of these thoughts: Edward saw to his amusement that Esme was just relieved that she looked like the sort of person who _could_ marry Carlisle.

"I'm sure you do look lovely, but you realize that you could wear a burlap sack today without the groom complaining?"

"Come in," she said, laughing. As he opened the door, Edward watched as she put down the hairbrush and opened her jewelry box.

"Here, something blue," she said, putting on a pair of earrings that Carlisle had given her a few months before for no reason in particular. That thought made Esme smile again. _Edward, I sort of feel bad asking, but has he been thinking about this for a while now too?_

"He's been planning on asking you to marry him since the moment you first woke up, after the change had ended," Edward said, resting a hand on the back of her chair. "And I don't feel bad telling you because it's always been a matter of 'when,' not 'if' with Carlisle."

"And he really didn't know how I felt," Esme murmured, the tenor of her thoughts deliriously happy. "Honestly, I don't know whether to commiserate with him or tease him a bit."

"Tease him, _please_," Edward said, pulling the item he'd found in his room from his pocket. "Now, here's something old."

Esme started as Edward gently clasped a necklace around her neck. It fell to just above the collar of her dress, right below her clavicle. Edward watched her incoherent amazement through the mirror, smirking slightly; she was shocked that the stones matched her earrings so perfectly, as did the silver they were set in.

"The earrings are newer than this," Edward explained. "This was my mother's—I showed it to Carlisle once, and I guess he decided that this particular shade of blue was your color too."

"Edward," Esme whispered, swallowing a sob. _Edward, you can't give me this. Say it's something borrowed—_

"No," Edward said firmly, smiling at her, their eyes meeting in the mirror in front of them. "It suits you perfectly, and anyway, I think my mother would prefer I contemplate my memories of her rather than what I inherited of her jewelry collection."

_You might meet someone you want to give this to someday,_ Esme insisted, still not trusting herself to speak aloud.

Edward bit back an impatient sigh—she was as bad about gifts as Carlisle. If joking wouldn't work, he'd have to be serious. "Esme, believe me when I say that I sincerely want you to have this. You and Carlisle are going to be very happy together, I can tell, and the least I can do today is give you some small thing to show you how happy I am that you're my mother now. Please, wear it, and keep it. It looks beautiful on you, you know."

Esme sniffed—a human gesture that, in her, seemed involuntary. "Thank you, Edward," she whispered, taking the hand that was resting on her shoulder and standing up. "You know, if I feel like crying now, I can't imagine what a mess I'll be when I'm at your wedding someday."

Edward rolled his eyes. "I think it's against the rules to contradict the bride on her wedding day, so I'm not going to comment on that theory—"  
"Edward, you can see what I'm thinking," she said, kissing him on the cheek. "You know that this is one of the happiest days of my life, and I'm never going to stop hoping that someday, you'll be this happy too." _I love you so much, son_.

Edward shook his head, smiling. _She's as stubborn as Carlisle too, at least about my future matrimonial prospects._ "You know, if you really plan on getting married today, we need to get going. Here, take something borrowed too." Edward pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and handed it to her. "You can wrap your bouquet in that."

Esme took his hand without a word, and together, they stepped outside. Esme hurried to the greenhouse and picked out a few of her favorite flowers, which she wrapped in Edward's handkerchief before meeting him at the car.

"How do I look?" she asked, hastily twisting a few flowers into her hair and smoothing invisible wrinkles out of her dress.

"I think you look perfect," Edward said, grinning. "But let's go ask Dad, just to be certain."

Carlisle was waiting for them just outside the church. The day was still mercifully cloudy, but sunlight was beginning to show at the edges of the horizon, and the cloud cover was being buffeted by a steady breeze—in all probability, the overcast sky would be clear by afternoon. Edward parked the car and hurried to open Esme's door before she could jump out and greet her fiancée in a manner that most churches tended to frown upon, at least in public places.

_Thanks, _Esme thought, her smile brilliant. _You can see I'm a little overeager—I suppose I should marry him before I do anything too improper._

"Please," Edward said, shaking his head and grinning as he caught a glimpse of Carlisle's face—he looked like he'd been hit over the head with something.

"Well?" Esme said, her voice rather breathless as she took in the neat cut of his suit, the perfect lines of his face, the way his lips—

Edward looked away for a moment; he would miss them when they left after the ceremony, but he wasn't going to miss _this_. A long honeymoon was just what these two needed.

"You're…beautiful," Carlisle managed at last, his voice breathless too.

Edward chuckled. "Then go wait inside, and we'll follow you in a minute."

Carlisle nodded, taking one last look at Esme before hurrying into the church, moving almost too quickly—today, imitating an ordinary human's pace seemed far too slow for either of them, as Esme demonstrated by pulling Edward toward the doors almost as soon as they'd shut behind Carlisle.

"Who are you pretending to be today?" she whispered, her thoughts a joyous, tangled blur.

"Your younger brother is going to give you away," he told her, smiling as he opened the door. "And like Carlisle said, you're beautiful, sis."

The ceremony was a simple, brief affair, a fact that Edward could see suited the happy couple just fine. He knew for a fact that both of them barely registered the minister's words; they just stared at each other, both their minds a blissful muddle of feelings. Edward was slightly surprised that each even managed to say 'I do' in the right place. But they did, and naturally the part that followed the words "you may kiss the bride," went off without a hitch. They kissed only for a moment, but Edward could see that it was a struggle for both of them to pull away and contain themselves, to wait until they were alone to—

Edward quickly began thinking of the most complicated pieces of music he knew in a futile attempt to drown them out. Bach, Bach was lovely, Beethoven rather dreary at times—_Moonlight Sonata_ was downright funereal at a slow enough tempo…

As they signed the marriage license, Edward relaxed slightly. Now they simply seemed dazed: married, after all these years. For Carlisle's part, he'd spent decades living with the certainty that something like this was, for him, an impossibility. Esme too had resigned herself to a life of quiet unhappiness as a human, but now here she was, possessed of an immortal's strength and beauty, and she was ecstatic. To her, this had never been a curse; eternity for Esme meant endless opportunities to learn, to be happy, to be with Carlisle…

Edward was happy for them, but he was also a bit unnerved by how this day had come about. Both of them had been very much caught off guard by their feelings for the other. He'd read about love so many times, but he'd never imagined that the phrase 'falling in love' was really so apt. For humans, love seemed mostly hormonal, a social necessity to further the species, or in his own parents' case, a relationship that was more that of two dear friends than that of passionate lovers. Was a day like this really possible for him, or, as he'd begun to believe, was it never going to happen? Was romantic love something that was just incompatible with his personality?

Carlisle too was a very logical person, yet after centuries of this life, he still believed in some form of a deity, not to mention the possibility of an afterlife for immortals; essentially, he was hopeful, optimistic. But Edward, after just four years of this life, could feel a growing cynicism working in him. Maybe love _was_ possible for people like Carlisle and Esme, but what if one was less determined to be good? Goodness certainly seemed to be prerequisite for love, and Edward had to acknowledge, if only to himself, that kindness didn't always come as easily to him as it did to his parents—constantly hearing people's thoughts was certainly part of the problem. To fall in love, didn't one need to be deserving of love?

_I don't deserve what they have_, Edward told himself bleakly, looking down the aisle at Carlisle and Esme. Idly, he wondered how good was 'good enough.' Carlisle and Esme were two of the most loving people he'd ever met. The fact that they were vampires aside, they both respected human life implicitly. What if it sometimes seemed that not all human life was sacred, that there were people who the world would be better off without? And if an immortal could rid the world of such people…

Edward quickly smiled as he saw them approaching him—today wasn't the day to think about morality of this sort. They were happy, and he was happy too. Other thoughts could wait, for now.

"Congratulations," he said quietly. They were holding hands, grinning at each other and at him, their happiness infectious.

"Thank you, son," Carlisle said softly.

"Who knows when we would have gotten here if you hadn't tried to help us," Esme said, tossing Edward her bouquet. He caught it, shaking his head, but it was impossible not to laugh.

"If I'd done a better job of helping, you would have been here sooner," Edward said, taking her other hand as the three of them left the church. "So, where were you thinking of having your honeymoon?"

"There's a house up north I haven't used for a while," Carlisle said. "I bought it around the turn of the century, but it was too big for one person."

"How many houses do you own exactly?" Edward wondered.

Carlisle smiled, but he looked slightly embarrassed too. "While we're gone, I'd appreciate it if you'd look in my office and try to figure that out, actually. Some of the deeds I have are for houses that probably aren't standing anymore."

"But you kept the deeds anyway," Edward said, raising his eyebrows.

"Time that was, it was easy for me to lose track of time," Carlisle said with a shrug, smiling down at Esme. "Once, one year was much the same as another, and decades might pass before I'd make a thorough examination of my possessions. But now…" He looked at Edward too. "Now, I've got something to look forward to every day."

Esme beamed up at him and kissed him gently as they stepped outside. Sure enough, a bit of sun was peeking through the clouds.

"We'd better hurry," Edward said, eying the sky thoughtfully. "You'll be driving most of the day? Running would be faster."

"But not as inconspicuous," Carlisle said. "When you get the chance, take your car to the shop and get tinted windows—it's made driving a lot less nerve-wracking for me, now that I know people can't see me through the dark glass."

"And before you can ask, I am _not_ going to be learning to drive on this trip," Esme said, pursing her lips slightly. Edward grinned—he _had_ been about to ask. "The next time we're ready for a new car, I'll take the old one and learn in it, but I'm barely a year old. I can't imagine getting in one of those things and getting it to move without destroying it just yet."

"But you're doing well today," Edward pointed out, motioning to the street full of humans.

"Very well," Carlisle said quietly, putting his arm around her and pulling her close. Edward rolled his eyes—he was beginning to think that neither of them was ever going to stop smiling.

Esme smoothed down her husband's hair. "Well, you've been keeping me distracted from my thirst quite well this morning. But I suppose we'd better not push our luck much longer."

Despite the innocence of her words, Edward sighed slightly at what came next. As soon as she spoke, Esme and Carlisle both tried to suppress their thoughts, or rather, their frantic desire to be alone, which in turn inspired thoughts of what they were going to do when they were alone...

"Time to go," Edward said quickly, leaning down and kissing Esme on the cheek. Carlisle and Esme let go of each other long enough to embrace him in turn.

"Take care of yourself while we're gone," Esme murmured.

"Don't worry, I won't blow up the house," Edward said, grinning at his father.

Carlisle chuckled. "I left a number where you can reach us, if necessary, and our address is there too." _Are you sure you don't mind us being gone a month, Edward?_

"I'm sure I'll be fine," Edward said, happy that Carlisle couldn't read minds. At the moment, his only concern was that a month wouldn't be long enough for the newlyweds to learn to control their thoughts a bit more effectively. "Have fun, and have a polar bear for me if you happen to get up that far north."

"We'll have to keep that in mind," Esme said, smiling at Carlisle, who opened the passenger door for her. As she sat down, Edward sighed again—she was not thinking about polar bears. _Sorry, Edward,_ she thought ruefully. _We'll see you soon._

"Goodbye, Edward," Carlisle said gruffly. Edward realized, to his surprise, that this would be the first time in almost four years that he and Carlisle had been separated for more than a few hours. They started to shake hands, but then Edward hugged him quickly before letting go, slightly embarrassed.

"Have fun, Dad," he said, amazed as he often was that Carlisle was, and always had been, so proud of him, so happy to have him for a son. "And don't forget about the polar bear. Sometime, all three of us will have to get up to the Arctic Circle to try some."

Carlisle nodded. "Sounds like a plan." _And thanks again, son. For…being here today._

"As if you could keep me away," Edward snickered. "Who knows when I might have the chance to go to a wedding again?"

Carlisle frowned and Edward caught the words _soon, I hope_, before he smiled and got into the car. Edward watched his parents wave to him, and he waved back until they turned a corner and disappeared. _Soon?_ he thought. No, he couldn't imagine that. But never, he had to admit, was a very long time.


	10. My Darling

Last chapter! Thanks for reading, and please review!

Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns "Twilight," not me. It's a bummer, but that's just the way things are.

Ten: My Darling

_"We were a family my darling, right from the start…"_

Esme's POV

The sun was just rising over the trees, and as rays of light began to slip through a gap in the curtains, Esme stared at her husband, marveling at the way his skin shone as it caught the light and reflected it in dizzying prisms of color. _Her_ husband. Esme grinned at the very thought.

"What's so funny?" he whispered, running his hands through her hair.

"I'm just looking at my husband, Dr. Cullen," she said innocently. "You seem to be smiling rather a lot yourself, you know."

"That's just because I'm looking at my wife," he said, his grin matching hers. "_Mrs. Cullen_."

Esme giggled, delighted. "Will you do me a favor and call me that as much as possible? I'm never going to get tired of hearing it."

"Good, because I'm never going to get tired of saying it," he chuckled. As his hand left her hair and began to trail down her arm, she traced patterns in the contours of his chest with her fingers. He pulled her closer then, and for a while, they didn't speak again.

She sighed. They'd destroyed their bed, _again_—this had been the third one in the house, and now, like the two they'd used before it, the frame had cracked and the mattress had fallen to the floor in a shower of dust and metal shavings from the twisted wreckage of the box springs. Carlisle was still laughing at her side, and for the first time, Esme noticed that the tangled blankets around them had been mostly torn to shreds.

"We still need practice, don't we?" she said, grinning in spite of herself.

"I'm afraid so," Carlisle said, putting on a very phony expression of suffering. "Oh, well. I suppose we'll manage to improve our technique somehow."

She giggled and threw what was left of a pillow at him before tackling him. The remains of a bed were better than no bed at all.

"I remember you sighing earlier," he said later on. "Worried about our lack of finesse?"

"Sort of," Esme said, lying back against his shoulder. "It's just…" She looked up at him, smiling. "We _should_ go home soon. We said we'd be gone a month, and it's almost been that. Of course Edward's probably missing us. But I was hoping…"

She could feel his eyes on her as she trailed off, but he didn't rush her. Esme sighed again.

"Well, basically I was hoping that after a few weeks alone with you, we could manage to be…_close_ without my destroying the furniture."

"So are you worried about Edward or our furniture?" he teased.

"Edward," she sighed. "Or rather, I'm worried about him having to listen to his parents destroy their bed every night. Though it seems I'm the problem more than you are."

"The second bed was my fault," he argued gently, still grinning. "As was the sofa. But I see what you mean. I have to admit that this particular aspect of marriage is far better than I'd even imagined. Better, but…"

He was snickering now.

"What?" she said, starting to giggle. "Is is that bad?"

"Well, I was thinking that it's a bit…louder than I'd expected," he said apologetically, and though Esme laughed with him now, she had the distinct impression that had they been human, both of them would have been blushing furiously. Of course, had they been human, the destruction of furniture mid-coitus wouldn't have been an issue either.

Esme put on a very prim expression, though she thought it might be ruined by the fact that she could feel the corners of her mouth trying to twist upward into a smile. And the fact that she was completely naked. "Well, Dr. Cullen, I suppose we're just going to have to learn to contain ourselves to some degree. When we leave here, should we make a rule about volume control?"

"Impossible," Carlisle murmured, smiling as he traced the edge of her jaw with his lips. "We'd break any rule to that effect in a day."

Esme wrapped her arms around him again, a delightful shiver of pleasure racing through her. No, she was fairly certain that she would never be able to last a day without _this_ ever again. And they had eternity to spend together: there was tomorrow and the next day and the next…

"If nothing else, we still have some time to practice now," Carlisle whispered.

Esme smiled. "We have _forever_ to practice."

And that's the end! Thanks so much for reading, and please check out a series of one-shots I'll be posting soon under the title "Eternity." (They'll be C/E stories too, but they'll be from the POV of lots of people, both members of the Cullen family and others). Also, I've got a mature version of the wedding night that I'm working on (and it's been done a lot of times before, I know, but I couldn't resist), so if you're interested in reading that, please review and tell me so!


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